The Edge of the Map
by ZeeofGreenEyes
Summary: Kurogane, once a simple cartographer, becomes a pirate in order to pursue both a face from his past and follow a murderer whom he has dedicated his life to extracting revenge upon. KuroxFai, others. Will eventually be rated R
1. I: Where there is sea

He'd been a kid and stupidly in love (as in love as a seven year old could be) with the older, annoying, crazy, ridiculously idiotic blond. The kind of love a little kid felt might not have been the same kind of love he felt years later, staring down the barrel of a gun at blue eyes and blond hair flying in the wild ocean wind, but it had been love, of a sort. He'd been in love with his stupid, naive vision of the world and what lay beyond the horizon, too. That idiotic, idealistic dream he'd fostered for years. He'd been in love with that too.

Fai had been 14 at the time, a cabin boy on a naval vessel that docked in Kurogane's hometown of Paloma. Kurogane had spent a lot of time playing at being an explorer, pounding up and down the docks and generally getting in the way of the more experienced sailors, pestering them with questions. Where is this ship going, what's the cargo and how much is there, how many feet is the mainsail and how long is the forecastle deck? Do you all take turns at the helm, or was there one man whose job it was to steer? Is the figurehead supposed to be a woman or a man, and why did this ship have one when that ship didn't?

Usually he was brushed off. Of course he was, he was just some pest who didn't know when to shut up and let the real men go about their work. Fai had been lounging in a tiny rowboat tied up at the dock, straw hat pulled over his face to block out the sun and one leg hooked over the side to let his toes trail in the water.

"Hey," Kurogane said, standing four-foot-four in oversized sandals and canvas breeches. He'd just been swimming and had his shirt slung over one shoulder, hair dripping, a grim, determined line of a mouth beneath an annoyed gaze that he fixed the blond with. "What are you doing?"

"Sleeping," the blond answered, tipping up the brim of the hat to look up at him with eyes like the ocean and a smile like a the curve of a wave crashing against the cliff-side. He wore one glove, not two - dark blue and made of a thick material.

"Is that your boat?" Kurogane asked testily, hoping to apprehend a criminal and maybe get into a scrap defending the property of the sailors he admired so much. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down the other boy, curious about his odd colouring but refusing to admit it. Hair like sand, eyes like the sea…

"No, but it's a good place to nap, isn't it?" Fai sat up, breeches rolled up to scraped knees and feet plunged into coils of rope at the bottom of the boat, leaning back and grinning up at the younger boy.

Kurogane's eyes narrowed. "I don't got time to nap."

"Oh? You're pretty little, what's keeping you so busy?"

"Shut up! I'm not little!" Kurogane snapped, little hands clenching into little fists. "I'm learning how to be a sailor."

"Why would you want to do that?" asked Fai, tipping up the brim of his hat. "It's pretty dull."

"…You're a sailor?!" exclaimed the smaller boy, quite spectacularly flipping out. "Why aren't you working, then?!"

"Shore leave!" the blond declared, standing up in the boat and bending his knees to balance better as it rocked wildly. Kurogane stared, dumbstruck.

"I-idiot! Don't stand up like that in a boat!" he cried, dropping his shirt in a heap. "That's one of the first rules of seamanship!"

"Hey, I'm the sailor, not you," Fai remarked cheerfully, the boat rocking back and forth beneath his feet as he swayed along with it, hands in his pockets, as though he was perfectly used to being on unsteady ground. "What's your name, little guy?"

"I'M NOT LITTLE AND WOULD YOU QUIT THAT?!" Kurogane said, jerking forward to grab at the ropes tied to the dock post in a frantic attempt at getting the boat to quick rocking quite so much. Fai laughed at him, touching the back of his hat to keep it in place.

"Quit what?"

"Either sit down or get out of the boat, you're gonna fall and hit your head!"

"You don't need to worry about me, I'm a seasoned sailor!"

"You're too damn young to be that and shut up! I'm not worried!"

"That's a pretty foul mouth for such a little guy!"

"I'M NOT LITTLE YOU DAMN- GAH!"

The docks were an inch shorter than it probably should have been and tide was high, and so naturally the water had splashed up through the planks. Kurogane's foot slipped at a crucial moment and he went stumbling over the dock, falling right into the stranger's chest and effectively knocking them both back into the water.

Pushing the stupid older boy away once they'd sunk to the bottom, Kurogane kicked off the ground and broke through the water's surface, gasping for air and cursing, scrambling up onto the top of the upturned rowboat. Fai emerged seconds later, clutching at the boat and sucking in a breath.

"See? An experienced sailor would never have done that," Fai said, laughing as Kurogane clawed at the dock to keep the book from tipping again.

"S-shut up!" Kurogane grumbled, pulling himself up onto the dock. Fai shoved him up by the seat of his pants and then followed, plunking down next to the cursing, blushing boy and wringing out his hair. "You're the idiot, here! They shouldn't let idiots on the water to begin with!"

"Ahahahaha! You're a really funny guy, little kid!"

"It's Kurogane!" Kurogane snapped, stumbling to his feet after the blond. Fai peeled off that singular glove and waved it in his face.

"Kurogane doesn't fit such a cute kid!"

"I'M NOT EITHER OF THOSE THINGS!" Kurogane growled, slapping Fai's hand away. The glove loosened from his grip at the unexpected slap, falling from his fingers and caught up by the wind, slapping against the water's surface. Fai's laughter died immediately as he watched the glove drift further from the dock, carried by a wave out to sea.

Without another word he had dove headfirst from the dock, hat flying off his head (Kurogane running after and catching it, yelling at the blond not to be such a damn idiot) and a splash of water hitting Kurogane across the face.

"What the hell are you doing?!" he shouted.

Fai ducked under the water, swam a few paces, and then emerged, front-stroking his way through the water neatly.

"I'm getting my treasure back!" he called, the final word half-cut off as he dove down again. That stupid glove had floated out a long ways, and it was a solid ten minutes before the blond, swimming gracefully through the jade waters, reached the dock again and pulled himself up. He stood, gangly and loose, with the sun at his back as he pulled the sopping wet glove back on, breathing heavier.

"That was stupid! What do you need one glove for?" Kurogane snapped up at the older boy. Fai smiled down at him obliviously.

"What do you need spiky hair for?"

"…THAT'S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING!" Kurogane roared, chucking the straw hat back at the blond. "Just take this back and leave me alone!"

"You caught it before it fell, right? That means you rescued it," Fai said, twirling the dripping hat around one finger. Then, surreptitiously, he plunked the wet hat down on Kurogane's similarly wet crown.

"Hey!"

"So this can be _your_ treasure now!" Fai declared, shoving the brim over Kurogane's face. "As a reminder of our adventure together!"

"SHUT UP!" Kurogane said, shoving the brim of the hat up. "This wasn't an adventure! This was just an annoyance!"

"Really?" Fai said, blinking down at him. "You didn't have fun going swimming?"

"THAT WASN'T SWIMMING, THAT WAS-!"

Someone called Fai's name and he looked over his shoulder, hands shoved easily in his pockets.

"That's me," he said, turning back to Kurogane and patting him on the head. "I've got to go, we're shipping off tomorrow and I need to help."

"I can't believe YOU'RE a sailor!" Kurogane grumbled, kicking off his sandals petulantly.

"All my life!" Fai said, turning and walking leisurely towards his ship. Kurogane paused a second before grabbing up his shirt and sandals, ripping the hat from his head and trailing after him.

"How the hell did you manage that? You're skinny and stupid!"

"So mean, Kuro-tiny!"

"…WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!" Kurogane roared, frozen to the spot in his rage as the blond sauntered onwards. Flustered, he ran to catch up, waving the hat around indignantly. "DON'T JUST WALK AWAY!"

"Do you prefer Kuro-petite? That's French, have you ever been to the French islands?"

"…N-no!"

"You should go, once you're a sailor. They're beautiful."

"…Shut up! I'll go where I want! My father's got a ship, you know," Kurogane said, hoping to impress the older boy so he'd shut the hell up. He hopped up onto one of the dock posts and leapt to the next one immediately, trying to keep up with the blond's easy stride. "He's a cartographer!"

"That's pretty cool," Fai said, coming up to the gangplank of a large three-mast ship swarming with casually dressed brutes. "This is a-"

"Merchant ship?!" Kurogane flipped out, depositing Fai's hat back on his head. "You must go all over the place!"

"…I get around," Fai said, smiling away. "We're almost to the end of our route, though. We'll be in this port on the way back in a few weeks."

"Like I care," Kurogane said, huffing and turning away. "Go on your cruise. I've got sailor things to do!"

"Good luck, little-Kuro!" Fai called after him, waving obnoxiously. Kurogane grumbled and pulled the brim of the hat over his head to hide the embarrassed blush. It was only hours later, when he strode into his seaside cottage and his mother looked up from rolling dough to comment on the appearance of the hat that he realized he'd taken it with him without complaint, and promptly cursed the damn thing and the stranger altogether, hoping he'd never have to see that stupid blond head again.

He did, of course. Only because that damn dock rat was prowling Kurogane's docks fairly often, the route taken to deliver silk and spices back and forth between the mainland and the colonies rarely changing. Since he couldn't avoid him - he WAS hanging out in Kurogane's territory, after all - he decided that he might as well get something out of it. He drilled the blond on life as a sailor, where he'd been and what his job was on board, what man did what and how young the youngest crew member was. How far along the coast had they sailed, and did they ever cross the entire Western ocean?

Then, sometimes, Fai would let Kurogane go out in a rowboat with him and fish in the shallows. Legs dangling over the boat, Kurogane would ramble on and on about his father, who was a brave sailor charting the land far away, making maps, and in whose footsteps he would eventually follow.

"Kuro-li wants to make maps?" Fai asked, tugging on the line as he thought he felt a nibble. Kurogane glared at him.

"I'm gonna sail around the world," he said determinedly, punching one fist in the air. "Someone else can make the maps, I'm just gonna sail and see everything I can! I'll sail to the end of the world!"

"That's your dream? To see the end of the world?"

Kurogane paused, looking determinedly over the vast expanse of sea to the sun hugging the ocean line, casting a wavering orange hue over the water's surface. It sounded stupid, didn't it? Then, swallowing, he nodded.

"I want to see it. The end of the world."

"That's a nice dream," Fai said simply, smiling. Kurogane looked away and grunted.

"Hn."

"I'll cheer you on!" Fai declared, plucking at the fishing line. "I think you caught something."

Kurogane pulled up his line and glared at the tiny minnow clinging to his hook. Stupid little guy! He flicked at it and then went about removing it from the hook just as Fai reeled his own line in, that stupid glove on the one hand, smiling away at the large trout wriggling on his hook.

He looked over to Kurogane, who was yelling at him to shut up before he'd even opened his mouth, pitching the minnow angrily back into the ocean.

He trailed home afterwards, a line of fish that Fai had given him to take home for supper (_not out of pity_ he told himself) over his shoulder, sand clinging to his wet feet. He ducked through the poor alcove of the beachside hut and greeted his mother, who was tying a bow in his sister's hair.

"There we are, don't you look lovely?" Kurogane's mother said, putting the finishing touches on the simple red bow. The child smiled at her reflection at the bit of glass propped up against the wall, nodding.

"Thank you, mommy," she said, giving her mother a kiss. Kurogane coughed to make his presence known.

"Oh, Kurogane, you've returned," Kurogane's mother remarked, straightening. "And you've brought dinner! How thoughtful."

"It's from that idiot at the docks," Kurogane grumbled, not feeling quite right about taking credit. He laid the fish down on the table for his mother to take care of and went over to poke his sister in the shoulder.

"Oniichan!" Hikaru cried, turning from her reflection to throw her arms around her brother. "Thank you for the fish!"

"Just shut up about it, it was nothing," Kurogane said, ruffling her hair and messing up the bow deliberately. Hikaru pouted but didn't make any move to right it. She punched Kurogane lightly on the shoulder, giving him a tiny determined look and clenching her hands into fists.

"I've been practicing my sword fighting!" she declared. Kurogane scoffed. "I have! I promise I'll get stronger! Then we can spar with each other!"

"I'm not gonna spar with my sister," Kurogane said, pouting. Hikaru tilted her head to the side, giving him a clueless look.

"Why not?"

"'Cause I'll hurt you and you'll cry, that's why," he said, turning away in a huff. "And that will be troublesome."

"No," Hikaru said, smiling brightly. "You'd never do that."

"How do you know?" Kurogane said, giving her a wary sideways look. Her smile intensified and she clutched her hands behind her back, shrugging.

"Because you're not a mean person," she said. "I just know it. You're my oniichan!"

Kurogane stared at her for a moment before huffing and turning around.

"Just practice hard," he said. "'Cause I won't let you beat me just 'cause you're a girl."

"I will!" Hikaru declared, smiling brightly as she trailed after her brother.

"Hey, what's this? I come back and my brat's acting like some kind of big shot?"

Kurogane grunted as a large hand descended on his head and shoved the hat forward, temporarily blinding him. He scrambled to push the hat off, flinging it to the ground just as surely as he flung himself at his father, throwing his arms around his waist (he wasn't tall enough yet to reach any higher) and calling out "father! You're back!"

"Oho, not too much of a big-shot to hug your old man, I see!" his father said, laughing as he somehow managed to reach forward and catch the straw hat as it fell (he was just good at EVERYTHING Kurogane thought, hugging tighter) and touch his son's head with the other hand.

Hikaru had run to hug her father in exactly the same form as her brother, snuggling up silently. Kurogane's father smooshed the hat back down on his son's head in order to free his hand to pat her hair back tenderly.

"The hat's a new addition," he remarked as he peeled his children off of him. "Trying to make a statement?"

"N-no!" Kurogane declared, ripping it off and tossing it onto the table.

"It seems our son has made a friend who gave it to him," Kurogane's mother remarked, wiping her hands on her apron and approaching her husband. Her hair was swept up in a messy bun, and Kurogane's father tucked a coil of hair behind her ear lovingly, leaning down to kiss the shell of her ear softly before letting his hand rest against her cheek.

"A friend, hmm?" he said.

"H-he's not a friend!" Kurogane snapped, batting at the hat. "He's just some idiot!"

"An idiot who gave you a hat that you kept," Kurogane's father remarked dryly, grinning down at him. "For you, that means you like them."

"I DON'T!" Kurogane had his little temper-tantrum, but before he could get very far his father had looped an arm around his neck and was mussing up his hair with his fist, laughing boomingly.

"Aww, just admit you've got a girlfriend," he said, laughing uproariously as his son tried in vain to deny it even as he struggled against his father's grip.

"It's a guy!" Kurogane choked out, kicking his legs at his father in an attempt to get him to let go.

"Boyfriend, then!"

"DAD!!"

"Bahahahaha, don't kick, you brat! I'm gonna be stronger than you for at least another decade so you'll have to get used to it!"

"I'll get stronger faster than that!"

"Prove it!"

"Kurogane's got a boyfriend?" Hikaru asked, looking obliviously up at her mother, who was quietly chuckling. "But Fai is a lot older than he is."

"H-Hikaru-!"

"Into older men, eh?! You sly dog," Kurogane's father laughed, almost overcome with amusement as his son, red from exertion and hair sticking up in all directions, finally managed to fight his way free and whirl around to face his father, hands clenched, glaring.

"He's just some moron who bugs me!" he assured his father. "And he tells me about sailor stuff. That's all!"

"Sailor stuff?" his father repeated, tilting his head to the one side. "I told you, you're too young to come out with me yet."

"I'm much stronger than the last time you saw me," Kurogane ground out, fixing his father with a determined gaze. "And I've learned a lot from the guys at the dock!"

"Have you?" his father said, looking down at him with a vaguely fond look of his own. "I'll want to hear about it at dinner."

"Yeah!" Kurogane said, nodding vigorously. "You'll see, I'm ready to go with you!"

"I'll take you out the moment I feel you are," Kurogane's father said, and Kurogane couldn't stop the grin on his face and he nodded again. "Now, where was I?"

He turned back to his wife and placed his hands lightly on her waist, pulling her delicately closer and nuzzling the side of his face into her neck. She laughed and twined her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek to his head with a light blush. Kurogane wrinkled his nose in disgust, grabbing his sister's hand and pulling her away.

"That's gross," he told his parents, who were only half-listening. "C'mon, Hikaru."

"But father's home!"

"We're not gonna stay and watch such a disgusting sight," he replied, tugging her protectively along. He heard his parents chuckle.

"You'll change your tune one day, kid," Kurogane's father said, watching them go. "Don't wander too far, got it? We're only in port for a few days and I want to see you kids too."

"Got it," Kurogane said, tugging his sister along.

* * *

It took him a years (still stuck in that stupid town, still unable to convince his father he was ready to see the world) before he realized that he was in love with that idiot.

He'd just turned nine and that idiot had been sixteen. He'd been sitting on the edge of an unused dock with his sister (at the time, six), trying to teach her how to fish, when he'd seen a familiar figure walking along the beach, his fishing rod over his shoulder, one hand gloved and the other shoved in his pocket. His heart skipped a beat in recognition and he leapt to his feet.

"Fai!" Hikaru had cried out instead of him, her cheeks colouring a bit as she waved frantically at the older boy. Fai didn't see, however, and continued walking until he'd reached the boat docks. He thrust his fishing rod into the sand and left it there unattended as he clattered down the dock towards his ship. Kurogane handed his fishing rod over to his sister.

"I'll get him, that moron," he said, taking off down the docks towards the shipping bay. When he found Fai, partially obscured by a web of rigging that they were repairing dockside, he was in deep conversation with the strangest-looking girl he'd ever seen. She was tall, probably a few years older than Fai and draped in an elegant purple cloak made of a kind of silk that shimmered in the sunlight. Coins clattered noiselessly in the wind, sewn with golden thread into the fabric and framing her painted face. She was smiling with amusement at Fai, an intricate butterfly tattoo on her forehead and temple that framed her glittering crimson eyes.

She pulled her hood back, revealing an intricate hairstyle adorned with jewels and coins, before she placed a ringed hand (tattoos running up the pale arm that revealed itself as the purple fabric slipped down it) on his cheek and leaned in close to press their lips together.

For a second he was struck dumb, and his heart was beating painfully faster and he didn't know why, which only made him angrier (was he angry? Yeah, he had to be) and more disgusted. He turned away with a grimace from the sickening sight and tore off down the beach, teeth ground together, hands clenched, rushing right past his confused sister and onwards until he couldn't see the docks anymore, just the tops of the sails like strange clouds on the skyline.

He sunk down to the ground, fisted his hands in sand and glared down at his feet for a long time.

The next time he saw Fai, he hit him. The blond had been walking under the docks and Kurogane had chucked a fishing tackle (hook removed) at the back of his head once he'd emerged.

"Owww, Kuro-ruu," Fai whined, rubbing at the back of his head.

"That's what you get for kissing weird girls!" Kurogane barked, leaving Fai blinking in bewilderment as the younger boy turned and ran off as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.

* * *

The merchant ship was away for months, then, and Kurogane spent a lot of that time moping. Even though he'd decided that he hated Fai - and who said he'd ever felt otherwise?! - for going around and kissing witches (must have been a witch, he thought) he was still frightfully bored and his heart hurt sometimes, which was annoying. He punched himself in the chest as though to tell his body to cut it out, but it was no use. He missed that stupid moron, and thinking of him sailing around, taking Kurogane's dream for granted and doing it with HER, that damn witch, just made him angry enough to want to punch a wall.

So he did. And then his mother came up to ask him what was wrong and he snapped at her, which in turn made him feel terrible and he went to the market for her to make up for it, even though he hated shopping. It was during one of these abhorred market visits that he ran into Fai again, although as soon as he did he turned right around and started walking in the other direction.

"Hey, hey! Wait up, Kuro-tin!" Fai whined, hurrying after him with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder. "Aren't you glad to see me?"

"NO!" Kurogane snapped, walking faster. "Leave me alone!"

"Grumpy!" Fai remarked, finding it quite easy to match Kurogane's rapid pace. "What's got you into such a bad mood, huh? Your father make you stay home again?"

"JUST SHUT UP!" Kurogane growled, realizing he was wearing that damn stupid hat and pulling it off his head indignantly. He thrust it at the blond, who took it back, puzzled. "I don't want this anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because it's probably covered in the germs from all the witches you kissed," Kurogane snarled, stomping off. Fai laughed and trailed after him.

"What makes you think I've kissed so many girls?" Fai asked amusedly. Kurogane came to a stop near the edge of the market, glaring darkly at the other boy over his shoulder. "Hmm, girls. Last girl I kissed was Yuuko," he continued, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"Witch," Kurogane grumbled to himself. Fai laughed loudly and patted him on the back.

"The term is shamaness! And Yuuko's not so bad, she's-"

"I don't care," Kurogane interrupted him swiftly. "If I wanted to hear mushy stuff I'd listen to my parents gushing over one another."

"You sound a little jealous, Kuro-pii," Fai said, amused. Kurogane whirled around sputtering wildly and flushing red.

"W-w-w-what the hell kind of crap are you sprouting now?!"

"Hey, I got you a gift," Fai said, changing the subject as Kurogane was still flailing at the thought of being jealous over such an idiot. He plopped the hat back down on Kurogane's head and set his massive bag down on the sand, rummaging through it obnoxiously. Kurogane scowled up at the brim of the hat, waiting for what seemed like forever (getting more irritated by the second) before Fai had pulled himself free of the bag's mouth with something clutched in his hand.

"Hold out your hand," Fai said, holding up his fist.

Reluctantly, Kurogane did. Fai cupped his hand - and they never touched, not really, and Kurogane's face went red again - and deposited something pointy and solid in his hand. He curled back his fingers and looked down at the star-shaped compass, the needle curved and quivering as it adjusted itself toward the northern coordinate.

"…"

"Well? Is it a good enough present for you to forgive me?"

"…It's girly."

"Kuro-taaan, it's a present! You're supposed to say 'thank you'!"

"Does it even work?"

"Of course it does," Fai said, poking the glass face of the star-shaped compass, still cupping the other boy's hand to steady it. "I thought you could practice with it before you go out on your own. Besides, your father sails north. This way you'll always know what direction he's in."

Kurogane stared down at the gift for a long time, shifting it this way and that to watch the arrow.

"…It's not that girly, I guess," he said, and Fai smiled.

"That means 'thank you' in Kuro-speech," he said, gathering up his bag and straightening. "I'm only giving it to Kuro-rins, so there's no need to be jealous, okay? Kuro-ruu is my favourite person to spend time with."

"I'M NOT JEA-" Kurogane began, before he was struck dumb (and his heart was beating faster, and he wanted to hit it again but that would make it obvious) by the last part, his entire speech of protest dying spectacularly in his throat. "I'm -- hn."

"Ahahaha, did Kuro-min want a kiss too?"

"SHUT UP! THAT'S THE LAST THING I WANT!" Kurogane snapped, shoving the stupid girly compass in the pocket of his breeches and turning to go home. Fai waved after him.

"Next time I see you I'll give you one, if you're good!" he called, and Kurogane (red as the sun itself, god-damn-it) yelled back at him to shut up and go kiss himself.

* * *

"That's a fine compass you've got there," his father said when he was in town one year and Kurogane was sitting by the fire, playing with his present. The firelight danced over the glass surface of the object, but Kurogane was thinking more about the person who had given it to him than the coordinates it was giving.

He was eleven, and not really that interested in kissing. But that didn't mean he wanted Fai to go around kissing other people. If it meant he had to kiss the stupid idiot to get him to stop going around kissing witches, he'd do it, so long as Fai didn't tease him too much about it and they got to go fishing afterwards.

"Yeah," Kurogane said thoughtfully, twisting it this way and that.

"Fai give that to you?" his father asked, peering over his shoulder. Kurogane nodded. "It's a good tool. You should keep it close. You never know when a compass'll come in handy."

"…Hn."

"Speaking of gifts, I have something for you too," his father said, clapping his son on the shoulder. Kurogane stared up at him. "Dunno if it'll be as good as a gift from your special someone-"

"WOULD YOU STOP CALLING HIM THAT?!"

"-But I think you'll like it."

"…Really?"

"Yeah, c'mon," Kurogane's father said, grunting as he lifted his son up and hauled him up the stairs under his arm, Kurogane kicking and complaining all the way. He finally set his son down on the floor of his poor study - their cottage, after all, was painfully tiny - and went to his desk beside the large window. He pulled open one of the larger drawers and withdrew a scroll, faded and yellow, although thick, confident lines of ink had leaked through the paper.

"It's your dream, right? To sail as far as you can sail," his father said, looking down at him seriously. Kurogane looked up at his father and nodded. He was handed the scroll and unfurled it with hands and seemed suddenly clumsy and small. Great, lush lines of ink illustrating coordinates and islands and wave patterns had been lovingly inked onto the aged parchment, depicting miles and miles of charted sea, starting with the western border with Paloma and stretching until the page suddenly went blank.

"It's empty for you to fill it in," his father said meaningfully. "If it's your dream, go after it, and chart the last stretch of the journey."

Kurogane poured over the map for a long time, drinking in every beautiful detail before he looked up at his father with a determined gaze and promised him that it would be done. His father smiled fondly at him.

"I think you're ready," he said. "You want to come with the crew next time we sail?"

Kurogane's heart leapt and he nodded vigorously. His father cracked a grin and crushed him to his side, messing up his hair violently.

"AUGH, QUIT IT!"

"That's the spirit, kid."

* * *

Fai was less impressed than he had imagined, but he was so happy he didn't care. He was twelve now, Fai was nineteen, and after a lengthy delay due to reports of heavy ice in the north he was finally ready to set out on his first journey.

"Hyuu, so Kuro-jin will finally be a sailor," he remarked, hanging over the side of the rowboat and Kurogane swam alongside it. "Pretty cool."

"Yeah, so don't go crazier while I'm gone," Kurogane said, doggy-paddling up to the boat and grabbing the edge. "I'm going to sail further than you've ever sailed."

"Oh, yeah?" Fai asked, amused, before leaning over and kissing Kurogane chastely on the forehead. Kurogane flailed and lost his grip, falling back into the water and ducking under the boat, coming up on the other side as Fai laughed.

"W-what was that for?!"

"As a sailor, you'll have to get used to the unexpected," Fai explained.

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO TEACH ME!"

"Besides, I said it, didn't I? Next time I saw you I'd give you a kiss. That was for luck on your journey," Fai explained, leaning back in the boat as though he intended to sleep. Kurogane grumbled, submerged in water up to his nose, and let pop a few irritated bubbles.

"You're an idiot," he mumbled, tipping his face up to speak.

"You always say that, Kuro-swim," Fai remarked coolly. "I wonder when you'll finally grow out of idiots."

"…Hmph."

And Kurogane realized, then, staring at the graceful hand and the awkwardly bent arm hooked over the lip of the boat and trailing in the water next to him, that he probably never would, actually. That maybe that kiss hadn't been so bad, and maybe Fai wasn't completely intolerable, and maybe he kind of liked him, a little.

And then he realized all at once that he was hopelessly in love with the blond, had been for a while, and was therefore very, very much in trouble.

"Damn it," he cursed, kicking at the boat again.

"What's that, Kuro-fish?"

"Nothing. Just shut up, would you?" he told him, dunking his head underwater so that Fai wouldn't look and see him blushing. Damn it.


	2. II: Affording dreams

"I'm going to be gone for half a year," Kurogane said, looking up at Fai seriously. He was wearing a neatly buttoned shirt and brown leather jacket, polished black boots and a weathered sea bag slung over his shoulder. His gaze was partially shaded by the tricorn hat that was a staple of the wardrobe aboard the royal ship and clutched in one hand was his trusty compass.

"It'll be less fun docking here without you, Kuro-min," Fai said, patting him on the head. Kurogane growled up at him, shoving the hat back into place. "You look all grown-up."

"I am grown up!" Kurogane snapped. Damn it, this wasn't how he wanted to say goodbye. He'd tossed and turned all last night, heart pounding as he thought of the various mushy ways he and the blond would part, cursing himself for even creating such ridiculous thoughts. He might have been young, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that he was still a kid to Fai, that he didn't stand a chance with him. The older boy was such a complete idiot he wasn't even sure it was worth the trouble anyway.

"I guess so," Fai said, surprising Kurogane as he looked down sadly at him. "To be going on such a grand adventure, that means you're a man now."

Kurogane stared up at him.

"…Yeah," he said, hands clenched around the leather gloves he wore. He patted the spot over his breast where he could feel the map, hidden in a secret pocket. "I am! And don't you forget it!"

"I most certainly won't," Fai said, crossing his arms and standing with his hip popped out in a way that made twelve-year-old Kurogane question why the hell he was in love with this moron.

"…Good," Kurogane ground out, raising his fists. "Don't you dare forget it or I'll come back early and kill you, got it?"

Don't you dare forget me, he thought at the blond, eyes narrowed, but was too embarrassed to say it. Fai blinked down at him before smiling, touching him on the shoulder that now came up to his forearm.

"I won't," Fai said, smiling genuinely. Kurogane flushed at the sight and looked away hurriedly.

His father was down at the end of the dock, arms wrapped around his mother's waist and forehead rested against hers, trailing his fingers through the hair gathered at the small of her back. She had her hands splayed out over his face and was saying something to him, looking rather serious.

"You don't have to worry," Kurogane's father said, smiling. "I'll take good care of him."

"I know you will, I know," his mother said, giving him a soft kiss. "It's just in my nature to worry, I suppose. It will be so quiet here without either of my boys."

"We'll be back in the spring," he said, pulling her closer and shifting so that he stood behind her, facing the ship, chest pressed to her back and chin against her shoulder. "And I won't let the brat get stuck in the rigging or fall from the crow's nest or get up to much trouble, I promise."

"I'm worried about you almost as much as him," she teased, smiling softly as her husband kissed her hair, laughing.

"I'll be on my best behaviour," he promised, nuzzling her neck. "Especially since I need to set a good example all over again for number three." His hands rested overtop his wife's stomach.

"There's time yet for that," she said, placing her hands over her husband's. "It will be a girl, I think."

"The mother would know," Kurogane's father said, kissing her shoulder.

Kurogane turned back to Fai, disgusted with the mushy display.

"I should go," he said, looking down at the tips of his boots against the dock. Fai nodded.

"Me too, we're setting sail tomorrow," he said, dropping his hand from Kurogane's shoulder. On impulse, Kurogane grabbed the tanned hand as it fell, causing the blond to blink down at him.

"I'm not gonna forget what a stupid idiot you are, either," he said, fixing his gaze straight-on. "So don't do anything stupid until I get back."

He turned abruptly, dropping the blond's hand and stalking up the gangplank, walking to the forecastle deck and setting his sea bag down on the planks. One hand curled around a bit of rigging and he pulled the hat from his head, letting the wind rush past him. The straw hat Fai had given him all those years ago was shoved into the bottom of his bag, too small for him now and fraying. He wasn't really sure why he was hanging onto it; he'd probably pawn it off in some foreign port.

His father placed a hand on his shoulder as they set sail, and as he watched the tiny city and his mother's waving figure disappear, he felt his father touch the back of his head tenderly before leaving him alone against the railing.

* * *

It was decidedly less exciting sailing than he had imagined. His father had told him lots of wild stories about natives and princesses that he recognized now were tall tales, but the long stretch between port to port was rather uneventful. Usually they were able to spot storms from a distance and move to avoid the worst of it, and Kurogane's day to day routine consisted of getting up at dawn, doing his chores, not getting in the seasoned sailors' way and going to bed late at night.

"We used to think this stretch of land was part of a small island," his father told him, standing at the bow with his hand on his son's shoulders. "But the further we sail, the more it looks like it's much larger than we anticipated. The map is wrong."

"So it's still an island," Kurogane muttered, arms crossed over the railing.

"Yes," his father laughed. "A big one."

"Why does that matter?"

"Hey, if you don't want accurate maps when you go out to sail the world and chase your dreams, that's up to you," he father said, grinning down at him. Kurogane flailed and knocked his father's hand from his shoulder.

"Of course I do!" he snapped; he hadn't actually thought about things like maps, he'd just assumed he'd find a cartographer who would navigate the ship for him. He didn't care about the technicalities, he just wanted to go adventuring.

"My son is such a dreamer!" Kurogane's father cackled, ruffling Kurogane's hair roughly.

"Quit it!" Kurogane growled, lamenting that this was becoming even more frequent the more time he spent in small quarters with his father. He pushed his father away and grumpily began smoothing back his hair.

"Do you have the map I gave you?" his father asked.

Kurogane nodded, still sulking. His father clapped him on the shoulder.

"You should keep it close. That map is the most detailed we've ever drawn up, it will take you to the brink of the known world, if that's what you want. No other map will take you as far."

"Right," Kurogane said, nodding. "I'll keep it safe."

"Good man," his father said, smiling fondly. "Once you pass the mark, you're on your own. You'll have to learn how to navigate by the stars."

"Those little dots?!"

"Yeah, don't flip out," his father said, laughing. "I'll get Taishakuten to teach you."

"You're not going to teach me?" Kurogane asked, slightly horrified. His father shook his head.

"No, I'm not that great at it," he said, laughing.

"WHAAAT!"

* * *

"Yuui!" Fai called cheerfully, padding down the cobbled street. Battered shutters and cracked paint characterized the tilting buildings of the dilapidated street, obscuring smoky air and standing against the soundtrack of sick coughing and rats scuttling through the gutters. Fai stepped over a particularly large one and ducked into an alleyway.

"Yuui?"

There was an alcove near the end of the alleyway between two abandoned buildings; a ratty scarlet sheet hung across it, and as Fai reached out towards it, it was drawn back and he was met with a smiling mirror version of himself. The same blond hair, except it was dirty and reaching past his shoulders; he was covered in dirt and his cheeks looked sunken in, but he smiled brightly and twined his arms tightly around him, a purple glove on his left hand that threaded itself into the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Fai!" Yuui said, hugging him tightly. "You're back!"

"Yes!" Fai said, wrapping his arms around his brother and burying his face in his hair. It smelled like the garbage he didn't doubt his brother had been forced to sift though - the money he made was never enough, not ever - during his absence. "Your hair is so long."

"Mm, I guess it's getting long again, huh? I'm bad at cutting it," Yuui asked, pulling back and laying a palm against his brother's face. Fai looked at his brother's scraped face and smiled, forgetting the question almost immediately. He couldn't stop the guilt, sometimes - he had a fairly decent life as a rigger aboard a merchant vessel, risking his neck for money enough to support his brother, having a roof over his head, a hammock to sleep in and two meals a day. He never had any money - every cent went to his brother - but he was safe and looked after.

"Fai?"

Fai blinked, snapping himself out of his stupor.

"Yes, sorry," he said, stroking back his brother's hair. "I'll cut it. I've got a shiv, one second."

They slipped past the makeshift curtain and into a tiny alcove. Part of the building had collapsed in years ago and Yuui was a squatter there. The tiny building, half collapsed in on itself, had once been some kind of antique shop. It had been boarded up for years, making it a safe bet that they wouldn't be kicked out. It was too cold in the winter and stiflingly hot in the summer, but it was a roof over their heads and the orphaned twins welcomed it after so many years of living on the streets.

"How have you been?" Fai asked, taking the shiv from his boot and gesturing at his brother to sit. Yuui sat down on an upturned bucket obediently as his twin began to chop away at the lengthy hair.

"Good," Yuui said. "I bought a mattress with the money you sent."

"I have more in my bag," Fai said, careful not to hurt his brother. "You can have all of it."

"I can't take all of it, you worked for it," Yuui protested, jerking forward a bit. Fai shushed him, tugging him gently back.

"I took the job for you," he said. "It's fine as long as we both survive. I get everything I need from the ship."

"I want to work too," Yuui said, clasping his hands together. "But I'm…"

"You take care of yourself, that's enough," Fai said, shearing off the hair at his neck now. "We have to make sure you have enough food to last you through the winter."

"Alright, alright," Yuui said, smiling softly. Fai cut away in a companionable silence until his brother's hair was shorter than his own, letting his twin stand and run his fingers through the short strands. "Perfect."

"Always," Fai replied, sweeping the hair out the window.

"I wish I could go with you," Yuui said wistfully, watching fondly as his brother stooped to rummage through his sea bag. Fai sighed.

"With your leg…"

"I know," Yuui said, interrupting softly. "I wish it anyway."

Fai looked up and smiled at him, pulling a sack of coins from the depths of his bag and handing it over.

"We're in port for three days," he said. "We can make the most of that time before I have to leave again."

"Yes," Yuui said, taking the sack of money carefully. He sat down on a broken-down couch, ripped and bleeding cotton, easing his wooden leg into a more comfortable position. It was cheap, but usually it didn't give him much trouble. "Tell me what happened this time."

"Oh, hmm," Fai said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Fujimoto got to see his baby for the first time in Greenlaw port. It's a girl with a really nice smile, just like her mother. They let me hold her and she bit my hand."

"A baby did?!"

"More like gnawed, I guess," Fai said, laughing. "And I saw two whales on the way back."

"Out at sea?"

"Yes! Oh, and Kuro-wan finally got to go out on his first journey."

"That's the little boy you took to in Paloma?" Yuui asked, raising an eyebrow. Fai nodded.

"He's not really a little boy anymore, but yes," he said, smiling a bit sadly. "His father took him to some uncharted island up by the equator. He'll be gone half a year or so."

"Oh, too bad," Yuui said, rubbing at the back of his head. "Now you won't have anyone to keep you company in Paloma."

Fai smiled.

"No. But I'm happy for him."

* * *

When he got back to Paloma, Kurogane had learned how to tie different knots, navigate using the stars, repair the rigging, sew a sail and had even been allowed at the helm for all of thirty seconds. He was, in his mind, a seasoned sailor. So what if all they'd done was sail around a rock to see how big it was? It had been charted, Kurogane had learned more about seamanship, and for all intents and purposes he considered himself a full-grown man when he stepped down off the gangplank onto the dock.

He felt like a real man's man until a familiar arm had curled around his neck and tugged him close.

"Kuro-chan!"

"Augh, get off me!"

"No way, tell me what it was like!" Fai declared, loosening his grip a bit so that the younger boy could slip free and fiddle with his collar indignantly. Kurogane pouted, his face hot and red.

"It was a trip down the water in a boat," he said. "We drew in more of my map."

"Aaah," Fai said, poking Kurogane in the forehead. "And is Kurogane a real man now?"

Kurogane slapped the hand away from his face.

"Yeah. So you can't call me little anymore," he said, heart hammering in his chest as Fai wrapped an arm companionably around his shoulders. He blushed and looked away.

"Guess not," Fai said, tapping his chin. "So, what works? Kuro-big? Kuro-wanko?"

"Just call me by my name!"

"That is absolutely no fun," Fai stated. "So, no."

"You're an idiot!" Kurogane snapped. "What the hell did you get up to while I was gone?"

Fai smiled thinly.

"Oh, the usual," Fai said calmly. "There was a merchant in town last time we docked here that you would have liked. He was selling swords and knives and things."

"WHAT!" Kurogane snapped is disbelief. "You mean Lantis?!"

Lantis was a weapons vendor who came through every few years or so. He was finally old enough to buy something from the man instead of just staring and trying to wheedle the stoic man into letting him hold one, and he'd missed him entirely. Damn it!

"Sorry," Fai said, smiling. "Did you meet lots of pirates and thieves that you needed a sword to fight?"

"No," Kurogane said, pouting as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I just got dragged to a lot of girly merchant stands by my dad in port."

"To buy your mother a present?" Fai asked, tilting his head to one side. Kurogane nodded sickly. "And did Kuro-sama get presents for everyone?"

"…I got stuff for my family," Kurogane said cautiously, trailing after Fai as they made their way down the docks. The singular gloved hand swung back and forth a bit as the blond walked, and Kurogae swallowed thickly at the sight of it. He shoved his hand into his jacket, fishing around for something. "And I… My dad made me get a souvenir for yo-"

"Hey, look Kuro-tan!" Fai interrupted, pointing towards something in the distance. "Lantis is still here!"

"WHAAT?!" Kurogane cried, catching sight of the weapons master loading up a cart in the distance and pushing past the blond, taking off shouting at the vendor as Fai followed behind him, laughing with amusement.

* * *

Kurogane sat in the room he shared with his sister, back resting against the end of his bed, sister asleep in the second bed at the other end of the room, staring darkly at the sword propped up against the opposite wall. He'd held Lantis up from leaving just to buy it; it was a cutlass, brand new with an obsidian scabbard and hilt. A painted dragon curled around the scabbard, its jaws curling back at the tip as though it was swallowing the blade. Kurogane's hands clenched and unclenched, aching to unsheathe it but knowing that a sword wasn't a play-thing.

Sighing, trying to occupy his itching hands, he pulled the thin box from his jacket and stared down at it. His father had poked and prodded and bugged him into getting things for his siblings and "friends" (by which Kurogane knew he meant Fai, because Kurogane didn't want or need friends) and he'd ended up buying this mostly to get his father to leave him alone.

His thumbs swiped over the top of the plain black box before he huffed. That idiot would only get the wrong idea. He shoved it under his bed roughly before standing and peeling his jacket and shirt off, preparing for sleep.

* * *

"It's got a strong kick," Kurogane's father was saying, hands splayed over Kurogane's mother's bloated stomach. "Just like the first two did."

"She's kicking a lot harder than Hikaru or Kurogane did," his mother said, smiling down at her stomach fondly. "Hina says it's possible it may be twins."

"Really?" his father looked up, grinning. "Twice the blessing and twice the trouble, huh?"

"Yes," his mother said, laughing. "Especially since they're yours."

"Heh," his father laughed shortly, leaning in to kiss his wife's temple. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Quit it!" Kurogane snapped, stomping down the stairs with his sword in-hand. "It's disgusting!"

"Hey, don't blame me that you haven't had any luck with romance," his father said, reaching over to ruffle his hair before Kurogane ducked and blocked him with the sword's scabbard. "Oh, finally getting a decent reaction time, huh?"

"My reaction time is fine!" Kurogane flailed. "You're just older so you're faster most of the time!"

"Keep telling yourself that, kid!" his father said, laughing. Kurogane glared at his father, clutching the slender box in his hand before he turned and stomped out the door.

"I'm goin' to the beach," he said, simply, shoving the box in his pocket.

He found Fai sitting under the docks, back to one of the posts dug deep in the sand, whittling away at the handle of his shiv. The hilt was slowly but surely taking on the shape of some type of wild cat the more he worked on it.

"Oi," Kurogane said, approaching the blond. Fai looked up, brushing the wood smooth with the backs of his fingers.

"Hey there, Kuro-pin," he said. "Heading out soon?"

"No, we're staying here until my mom has the baby," Kurogane said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, babies."

"Twins?" Fai asked, eyes widening.

"Yeah," Kurogane said. "Mom says she thinks it'll be girls. Like there's not enough girls already." He'd been hoping secretly for a brother.

"…Hmm," Fai said, looking down sadly. "Twins are a blessing and a curse."

"Wha?" Kurogane said, squinting one eye at him. Fai smiled brightly.

"Nothing, Kuro-ruu," he said, tucking his shiv back into his boot.

Kurogane narrowed his eyes at him, sensing the lie. He sighed and reached into his jacket, chucking the box at his friend. Fai caught it deftly, blinking down at the plain, thin box.

"Here. Just take it and don't make a big deal about it or I'll sock you," Kurogane said, crossing his arms and looking away, the sun and his embarrassment causing his cheeks to flush.

Fai slid the top off the box and laughed.

"Thank you, Kuro-tan," he said, pulling the singular black glove form the box and sliding it onto the hand that didn't already have a glove. He held them both up, black and blue, old and new, and smiled.

"Whatever," Kurogane said, sinking down to the sand across from Fai. "Just don't get the idea I like you or anything."

* * *

By the time Kurogane was 17, he was taller than Fai, who was 25 at the time it was first mentioned.

"Hey, when did that happen?" Fai asked, poking Kurogane in the chest when he saw him at the tavern in Paloma one time. Kurogane slapped the hand away, trying to ignore the slight fluttering of his heart. He saw Fai less than he had as a kid, what with their ship schedules not always overlapping. Even when he was home, with three sisters he was expected to help out. Yuzuriha and Yumi - twins after all, both of whom adored Fai and whom he treated with a kind of sad kindness - were a handful and money was a little more scarce now with four children, but they got by. His father's maps were the best in the world, and that helped.

He'd seen the blond in other ports periodically, but Paloma was still where they tended to meet, when they could.

"Are you blind?" Kurogane asked, sitting down heavily at the table. "I've been taller than you for ages."

"So tall," Fai said, burying his face in his hands. "It makes me feel so inadequate."

"Shut up," Kurogane said, reaching forward to take a gulp from Fai's ale. Fai flicked his hand and grabbed his back. "Ow!"

"You're too young," Fai said smugly, taking a long gulp of the drink. "Besides, if you're hungover tomorrow you'll have a hell of a time getting up to sail."

"It takes a lot to get me drunk," Kurogane argued, but pillowed his head against his fist and sulked. "Besides, shouldn't you be following your own advice?"

"It takes a lot to get me drunk too," Fai said, standing. "Besides, I've got to get going anyway. I have to meet someone."

"Who's that?" Kurogane said, eyeing his drink. Fai laughed, picked up the tankard and downed the rest in three smart gulps. He inhaled, satisfied, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"A witch," he said, mysteriously. "You remember Yuuko-san?"

Kurogane twitched involuntarily, his hands twisting into fists. That witch he'd seen Fai kissing all those years ago. She traveled with the merchants occasionally, apparently being the mistress of the captain, a spoil of a trading deal done with a sultan somewhere in the distant east. She was a princess, one of a hundred and one; besides that, she was a shamaness, whatever that meant. He'd caught them kissing a few more times, even though Fai insisted they weren't a real couple.

"I guess so, judging by that twitch," Fai said, poking Kurogane in the forehead jovially. "She's not that bad, Kuro-ruu, do you really hate her teasing that much?"

It wasn't just the teasing he hated, he thought, slapping Fai's hand away, although that was more than half of it. More than that, there was something funny about that witch and he'd sensed it right away. He didn't trust her, not in his port, not around his family, certainly not around Fai, who was completely stupid enough to get himself into trouble, especially if he had feeli-

Frowning, he stood, pushing his chair back abruptly. Fai blinked at him.

"I'll go with you," he said, firmly.

"Eh? Why?"

"You said you weren't involved with that witch, so it shouldn't matter, right?" Kurogane said, laying a hand on the pommel of his sword. Fai swallowed thickly.

"Kuro-sama can come, if he wants," he said, carefully. "At least until she arrives; then we'd like some time alone."

Kurogane growled and shoved his hands in his pockets, following after the shorter man moodily. They made their way to the docks, quiet and dark with the moon hanging, pearl-like, in the sky. The water lapped against the sand of the beach, the hulls of the ships; wood and rope creaked ominously as a cool wind rushed over the surface of the ocean.

"How long will you be gone this time, Kuro-yuu?" Fai asked, flexing his gloved fingers. Kurogane shrugged.

"Couple months. We're going to confirm what we already know about some coastline," Kurogane said, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Fai hummed and moved a bit closer to the other man, looking up at him.

"How long are you going to sail with your father?" he asked.

"…I don't know," Kurogane said after a moment's pause. "Why?"

"I don't know about you, but last I heard, cartography wasn't your real passion," Fai said, pushing off the dock-post to face him. "You said you wanted to sail further than anyone else. Do you still want that?"

"Yeah," Kurogane said, eyes steely and sure. "I haven't forgotten. But it takes money to get a ship."

"The Kuro-sama I know wouldn't let that stop him," Fai said, punching Kurogane on the arm. Kurogane grabbed his hand as the other man made to pull it back, clasping his wrist tightly. He fixed a startled Fai with a serious look.

"I'm going to do it," he said. "Don't ever think otherwise."

"…If anyone can afford a follow a dream in this world, it's Kuro-sama," Fai said, eyes skittering away uncomfortably.

"What about you?"

"What?"

"Is there something you want?"

"I'm happy the way I am," Fai said, laughing and trying to tug his hand back. "Don't worry so much, Kuro-sama, I-"

"That's a lie," Kurogane growled. "You're lying to me."

"I'm not," Fai said, tugging his arm free and taking a step back, smiling away. "I don't want anything."

"Everybody wants something," Kurogane spat. Fai shrugged.

"I don't have any desire to go so far away," he said, with a soft smile. "Not like Kuro-sama."

"…Tch. Idiot," Kurogane said, scoffing and looking away. "It doesn't have to be the same thing as me."

"Kuro-sama…" Fai began, before catching sight of something over the younger man's shoulder. "…Yuuko-san is here."

"Tch," Kurogane scoffed, turning and glaring at the witch.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked cheerfully, hands clasped beneath her billowing robe. Fai shook his head.

"Nope!" he said, moving forward to take her hands. "Just on time!"

"Wonderful!"

"Yeah, wonderful," Kurogane sulked before stalking past the two lovebirds and stalking off down the dock, doing his best not to look back or think about what they'd be doing.

* * *

He thought about what Fai had said, all night, and thought about what he wanted and what he was willing to do to get it. Morning came and he hadn't slept a wink.

He could see Fai standing on the edge of the dock, body held loosely like the swirl of a wave, jacket flapping in the early morning mist. Kurogane stalked down the dock, hands clenched, eyes narrowed. He bypassed bleary sailors gathering rope and hauling in gangplanks, reaching out to touch the blond's shoulders just as he turned around.

"I'm going to do it," he said, fiercely. "When we arrive in port, I'm signing on to a marine ship."

"Kuro-sama, I didn't mean-"

"Shut up," Kurogane spat. "I've got a goal and it's not gonna happen if I never leave my father's ship."

"…I-"

Someone called Kurogane's name and he cursed, glaring at the sailor over his shoulder.

"…Good luck," Fai said, smiling forcedly. "I guess I'll see you around, huh?"

"…Yeah," Kurogane said, letting his hands fall. "…Well. Bye, I guess."

He held out his hand awkwardly. Fai stared at it before laughing heartily.

"Kuro-sama, it shouldn't hurt your masculine pride too much to hug someone you're probably never going to see again, right?"

Fai hugged Kurogane, patting him on the back companionably and resting his chin on his shoulder. Kurogane froze up, his arms coming to rest awkwardly on Fai's back. He could feel the blond's hair against his cheek and he turned his head just a little into it, a handful so seconds passing before Fai was pulling away, clapping him on the shoulder.

"I hope I see you again someday, Kuro-ruu," Fai says, and his eyes are maddeningly difficult to read.

"…Yeah," Kurogane says, not sure what to hope.

* * *

The man with the bat tattoo.

The contours face, the cleft in the chin, the pattern of the facial hair and the cloth tied across one eye. Details that would remain burned in Kurogane's brain until the day he died, no matter what he did with the rest of his sorry life. The pattern of the purple tunic, the fall of the thick velvet cloak that wrapped around his shoulders.

They'd just left one of the smaller ports (no naval presence there, merely a provisions stop-off) when they'd been boarded by a man flying a flag with a bat symbol. Their ship didn't carry any valuable merchandise and they flew a peace flag; it didn't stop them from tossing shrapnel into the rigging and shredding the sails, blasting canons and shooting at them with rifles once they'd gotten close enough to board.

Planks slammed onto the rail of his father's ship and a sailor who had been blocking Kurogane was shot through the neck. Horrified, he watched the kind old man fall - he'd had three children and a wife whose brother depended on him - to reveal a hoard of black-cloaked pirates barreling over the planks and onto the ship, drawing their pistols and cutlasses and howling war cries.

His father had fought valiantly, but the man with the bat tattoo - burned onto his face, like a cattle brand - had overpowered him and stabbed him through the arm, pinning him to the mast.

Kurogane had been grappling with two of the pirates when he caught sight of it, and his shock at the rivulets of blood running down his father's arm and the sight of the large man looming over him gave them enough time to shove him down, pin him, dig their shiv into his hand and carve out a crude symbol. He screamed and tried to kick free, but even he was no match outnumbered.

It all went by in a flash; he had taken a few knocks to the head and had lost some blood, and as they hauled him up (just barely able to see his father's bleeding form pinned to the past, unsure if he was alive or dead) and asked him where the map was.

"The map?" he asked, growling, half-delirious.

"Don't play dumb with me," the tattooed man had said. "Your father won't say where it is and we've searched the ship. As the son, you're the most likely suspect."

The map his father had given him, he thought. He'd been filling it in as they nudged the edges of the known world, reading it over every night and memorizing it. It was a cryptic coordinate system his father had used, but one he'd learned diligently. The map that would take him to the end of the earth.

"I don't know anything about it."

He was slapped and hands were suddenly grabbing at him, tugging at his clothes and searching through every fold of fabric, running down his body to find any concealed weapon or hint of the artifact.

They found it, naturally, and Kurogane spat and cursed at the tattooed man, his hand bleeding profusely and twitching in pain, kicking against the two men that held him upright. The tattooed man unfurled the map, running his unworthy eyes over the markings and lines and smiled to himself satisfactorily.

"Get away from him," his father croaked weakly, and Kurogane's heart stopped when he saw the tattooed man cast an irritating look at the man pinned to the mast.

"We only need one to read the map," he said to what appeared to be his first mate. "Let's do as he says."

Kurogane choked on a protest as he was hauled up and shoved along the gangplank, forced back by a barrage of swords until the plank was too unsteady beneath him and he fell, sinking deep, deep into the ocean as the water swallowed his scream and he tried in vain, weakly, to kick back up to the surface.

He could feel his lung burning as his eyes slid shut, body went limb, and he barely had time to register a sinewy white arm reaching through the murky, bloodstained water before he had lost himself to grief and weakness.


	3. III: Umi

When he opened his eyes, he was conscious of three things: the long expanse of shimmering, ivory-white sand burning his retinas, the lapping of the cool, clear water at the backs of his knees, and the soft press of skin beneath his cheek.

He could feel hands in his hair, as though someone was stroking their fingers along his scalp, and beneath his cheek he could feel the press of knees. He blinked and groaned, shifting weakly a little as he tried to sit up.

"Eek!" squealed a voice, and abruptly the cushion beneath his head was gone and his head crashed down against the sand.

"W-what the hell-?!"

He peeled his face off the ground and blinked blearily up at the silhouette of a young girl (the sun at her back, in his eyes, transforming her form into a shadow that he had to blink to make out) who stood hurriedly, primly brushing the sand off her knees and fiddling with her shift.

Weakly, he ran a hand down his face, spitting out sand and pushing himself up onto his knees.

"Y-you...! You should have said if you were awake!" the girl sputtered indignantly. Kurogane opened his mouth to reply, but whatever words he'd prepared vomited into a cough and he doubled over, hacking up all the water in his lungs. "W-wah!"

The girl dropped to her knees again and placed a hand on his back, rubbing awkwardly.

"I don't know - ! If you're choking you're supposed to do mouth-to-mouth, right?! But I don't really want to-! But then if you really need it - !"

"I'm not-! Just shut up a minute!"

"Excuse me?!"

Kurogane finally managed to get a hold of himself, irritated and confused and more than a little dazed. Achingly, he pulled himself up into a sitting position, brushing off the girl's hands and blinking at her.

She was dressed in a white cloth that wrapped around her frame like a toga and long blue hair cascaded down her back. His gaze travelled up above the elegant arch of her ivory neck and the curve of her narrow shoulders to lock onto large blue eyes that reminded him of the ocean close to the shore. He blinked and ran a hand down his face, trying to recover his bleary memories of the attack.

"Ugh..."

"Are you alright, sir?" asked the girl, hands clasped together. "Can you stand? I have medicine in my house!"

"'M fine-" Kurogane began, before he felt his eyes flutter closed and he swayed, nearly loosing consciousness once more.

"You're NOT fine!" the girl replied shrilly. "Now, stand up, and I'll help you walk!"

He slept for almost a day, only half-aware of the island girl fluttering anxiously around him, fluffing his pillows and dousing his forehead in warm water. When he managed to drift into a deep enough sleep, he saw the eerie bat symbol of the rogue pirate dancing across the insides of his eyelids, the turbulent churning of wine-coloured waves and the deep, murky depths of the water he'd sunk so deeply into.

He opened his eyes again and was assaulted by sunlight. Blinking against the light, he sat up, his soiled shirt slipping off one shoulder and the thin blanket pooling at his feet as he swung his legs over the side of the crude bed.

"You're awake!" came a voice, and Kurogane craned his neck up to catch sight of the blue-haired girl dropping down to the ground from a hole in the low roof. "I was afraid you'd sleep forever and I wouldn't know what to do! The nearest town is days from here."

"Where am I?" Kurogane asked, cutting straight to the point. He stood unsteadily, towering over the young girl (she looked about sixteen, he thought, although he couldn't be sure; younger than him, definitely, even though he was far taller) who met his gaze bravely.

"You're on the coast of Lioncoeur," the girl explained, her slight accent showing itself. "Don't tell me you didn't know!"

"I didn't."

"I found you on the beach – my name is Umi, by the way – collapsed and half-dead," she said, crossing her arms. "Did you just wash up from a shipwreck or something? This part of the island's completely deserted."

"If it's deserted, why're you livin' here?" Kurogane asked. Umi blinked and looked up at the hole in the roof, a wistful look crossing her face.

"My sister and I lived here with our parents since we were little," she said. "They're gone now, and maybe I should try to leave, but I don't have the heart to leave this house. All my memories of my family, the happiness we had... I could never leave the place where I made them. It's too precious."

"...Hn," Kurogane grunted. He was still reeling from what had happened on his father's ship – his father was alive, he was fairly sure, but he couldn't say for how long. And his mother and sisters... would they know? How long had he been lost at sea? They would think he was dead if the news had reached them yet.

"I've gotta go," he said abruptly. He wasn't sure how he was going to get home, or even where in the world he was (he vaguely recalled this island from his father's map, which he had studied to the point of memorization) but his first move would be to find his way home and make sure his family was alright. And then...

And then he would go after the man who had taken his father.

"W-wait! Where are you going?!" shrieked the girl, trailing after him as he weakly made his way towards the door.

"I've gotta get back home," he said. "D'you know how to get to Paloma from this place?"

"You're not going anywhere!" Umi cried, grabbing onto his hand to get him to stop. He hissed, a sharp pain shooting up his arm as he jerked away, noticing for the first time the bloodied bandage that was wrapped tightly around his palm. "Aah, sorry! I didn't mean...!"

"It's nothing," Kurogane snapped, cradling his hand. Umi led him back to the bed and made him sit, unravelling the bandage as gently as she could.

"There's a wound on your hand," Umi said, cradling his hand in hers. Kurogane grunted and averted his gaze, the memory of the pirate attack rushing back to him. "I think it was beginning to develop an infection, but the worst of it is gone now. I got to it right away, but maybe I was just mistaken altogether. I don't know much about medicine."

"Why'd you bother?"Kurogane asked shortly as Umi began re-wrapping the ugly wound on the back of his hand.

"As if I would just leave you there!" Umi huffed, tying the bandage a little tighter than necessary. He hissed and pulled his hand back. "I'm not that cruel!"

"Alright, alright," Kurogane grumbled, flexing his fingers carefully. "Thanks and everything, but I can't stick around."

"I'm the only one here," Umi said, pouting a little.

"Wha?"

"I said this island's deserted now, except for me. So you can go wherever you want, but there's no place to go."

"Deserted?!"

"Of course! The only way off would be... Mr. Ueda," Umi said primly, crossing her arms.

"Who?"

"He's my cousin. He runs a merchant ship that travels from Norima to Casst, and on the way he stops off here to give me food. He's so kind, I'm sure he'd take you along so that you could find your way home."

"Hn. And when's he comin'?"

"Uuh..." Umi began, poking her fingers together lamely. "Next month."

"I can't wait that long!" Kurogane growled, standing.

"Oh, I suppose it would be quicker to build a raft and drift aimlessly across the ocean until you hit hand, huh? You're lucky you managed to wash up somewhere at all the first time!" Umi snapped, grabbing Kurogane's arm and pulling him back down once more.

"...Fine," Kurogane grumbled.

Umi stood and ran her hands through her hair, pulling the strands into a loose braid and looking up at the hole in the roof.

"By the way," she said, smiling at him. "Can I ask what your name is?"

"Kurogane."

Even though his thoughts were often back home, Kurogane couldn't complain about his life on the island with the blue-haired girl. She cooked, she did most of the cleaning, she scavenged for food and made repairs around the house herself. She'd clearly been living this way for a long time, and Kurogane didn't want to interfere.

Umi, he discovered, was very polite despite having a hot temper, and worked as hard as she could to keep her house in perfect condition. She spent much of her leisure time braiding flowers into chains, keeping to the shade so as to preserve the pale colour of her skin and sitting by the ocean, splashing in the shallows.

"Kurogane?" she asked one night, peeking around the threshold of the bungalow's door. She had a towel wrapped around her head beneath which a few curly blue strands had fallen loose, and her blue shift cast an aqua light against her pale, wet skin. "If you want to take a bath, I'm finished."

Kurogane stood; Umi had been very strict about making sure they informed one another whenever they needed to bathe so as to avoid an indecent situation. He was, therefore, surprised when she turned and followed him as he made his way down the beach to the shoreline, a towel slung over his shoulders.

"...You want something?" he asked, turning to look at her over his shoulder.

As though snapping back to life, Umi blushed at the implication and whirled around so that her back was to the sailor.

"I-I only wanted to... W-while I was... I was thinking, and I wanted to talk to you. That's all," she said, wringing her hands together. "Do you mind? I won't look, I promise, I'd never do something like-!"

"I don't care," Kurogane said, tossing the towel down and peeling off his shirt. "What'd you wanna talk about?"

"Well," Umi said, sitting down cross-legged on the sand and tugging the towel from her head. She brushed through her scraggly wet hair with her fingers and set about drying it with the same towel. "I was just thinking, you've been here for a few weeks now, and you know about my parents and Fuu, but I don't know anything about you at all."

"Hn," Kurogane grunted, wading out into the water and dunking his head under. "There's not much to tell."

"Even if that's true, if you're not uncomfortable with it, I'd like to know a little bit more about you," Umi said quietly, hugging her knees to her chest. "I feel like, with you, it's okay to ask, because if you didn't want to answer, you wouldn't. So I don't have to worry about making you answer something you don't want to." She paused. "You said you were from Paloma, right? Did you have a family there?"

"...Yeah," Kurogane said, treading in the shallows and trying to keep his tone neutral. He couldn't help but worry, thinking about his father in the damp, disgusting brig of a savage ship, and his mother back home with three children, all on their own, not knowing if either of them were alive or dead. Even if news hadn't reached them of the attack, they'd been due back a week ago. His mother would certainly know something was wrong.

"Oh, a... wife?" Umi asked tentatively. Kurogane snorted.

"I'm not old enough for that sorta thing," he huffed.

"Oh, you don't have to be any certain age to get married, you only have to be in lo--!" Umi began to protest, whirling around before she could stop herself. Kurogane looked up at her and she blushed violently, whirling back around stiffly. "I-I mean, as long as you're in love, it doesn't matter! One day I want to get married. It's one of my dreams!"

"Hmph. If it's what you want, go ahead."

"So you live with your parents?" she asked, trailing a hand in the sand. "Do you have siblings?"

"Three sisters," he said.

"Three? Wow!"

"One's your age. The other two are twins, and still little," he explained, washing his arms swiftly. He stood and stepped out of the water, snatching up the towel and rubbing his hair dry. Umi smiled.

"That's so cute!" she said. "Twin sisters! I never would have guessed you were the type to grow up with women."

"There was my dad," he said, sparing another moment to worry for his father's fate. "And... a friend."

"A friend?" Umi asked. Kurogane quickly dressed and draped the towel around his shoulders, grunting to indicate that he was finished.

"...Some guy," he said, looking up at the moon. "He hung around and got to know us. He's... an idiot, but..."

"You like him, right?" Umi asked, smiling as she stood after him. Kurogane blinked.

"What?"

"Well, to mention him after your family, you must have liked him, right?"

"...Yeah," Kurogane said, one corner of his mouth quirking up for about half a second before it was gone. "He's out there somewhere, too, on a merchant ship."

"I'm sure Ueda will come soon," Umi said, smiling up at him and clenching her hands into fists. "And I'll pray that the wind is strong so you can get back to the people you love as quickly as possible."

"...Hn," Kurogane grunted, walking past her towards the bungalow and smiling ( just a tiny, little quirk of the mouth) despite himself once more.

As the days past, Kurogane began to do little things, such as carrying firewood to the bungalow and making minor repairs whenever he saw something that needed fixing. When Umi returned from gathering pears from the jungle one day nearing a month of their time together, she found Kurogane perched on the roof, shirtless and working on plugging up the gaping hole in the roof that had been growing steadily ever since he had first arrived.

"Kurogane?" she called up. "What are you doing?"

"It's a pain trying to sleep when the sun's in my eyes," he grumbled.

"I can fix it!" Umi insisted, setting down her basket. "You don't have to-!"

"I'm almost done, quit complainin'," Kurogane said. Umi laughed, smiling up at him brightly.

"Alright," she said. "Thank you, Kurogane."

"Whatever."

It was a week after that when the ship came.

Umi and Kurogane had been on up on the cliffs scavenging for food when they'd seen the sails on the horizon.

"Ueda!" Umi had said suddenly, setting down her basket. "That's his ship, I know it! He has light blue sails! There's a sailmaker in Casst who makes blue sails who he's got a crush on."

"Hn. About time," Kurogane said, picking up the basket that Umi had dropped. "I'll take these back. You coming?"

"Kurogane..." Umi began, smiling softly as the ship worked its way towards the bay. "This is goodbye, isn't it?"

"Guess so," Kurogane said.

"I know it hasn't been that long, but I've really enjoyed our time together," Umi said, smiling with a twinge of sadness in her eyes. "I hope you won't be too uncomfortable if I say I'm going to miss you a lot."

Kurogane stiffened a bit, uncomfortable with the admission even though, deep down, he was sure he would sort of miss the blue-haired girl as well.

"Y-yeah," Kurogane said, adjusting the basket's weight under his arm. "It'll be hard to forget this weird place too."

Umi laughed a little at that.

"Kurogane, I..." she began, before she'd flung herself at the older boy and wrapped her arms tightly around his torso, burying her cheek against his chest. He stiffened immediately, flushing and stumbling back in an attempt to keep the baskets from falling.

"W-what're you-?!"

"If I'm never going to see you again, at least shut up and let me have a proper goodbye, alright?" she said, and Kurogane grumbled and looked away, allowing it just this once.

They made their way back to the beach. By the time they'd managed to get down the rocky path, there was a longboat already pulled up onto the sand, loaded with previsions.

"They must be at the house, I..." Umi began, before her words died in her throat at the sight of smoke billowing up into the sky from over the hill in the distance.

They ran down the beach and through the jungle to the bungalow. As they rounded the final corner, the heat from the raging fire that had engulfed the tiny bungalow hit them across their faces as it ate through the thatch roof and mouldy wood.

"W-WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Umi shrieked, rushing forward towards her beloved home. Kurogane grabbed her arm and tugged her back roughly.

"It's spread too far," he said. "We don't have the means to put it out without endangering ourselves."

"But it's my home!" Umi cried, jerking free. "It's all I have!"

"Don't be stupid," Kurogane snapped. "Your life's worth more than your house."

"Oi," came a voice, and Kurogane whirled around to see three men ambling out of the forest. "You the ones livin' here?"

"Why did you burn my house?!" Umi demanded, tears welling up in her eyes. "And why do you have my cousin's ship?!"

"It was the only ship sailin' in these parts," explained one of the men, grinning lopsidedly and exposing his sword-like teeth. "We shanghaied the crew and took it."

"Why?!" Umi cried, covering her mouth in horror.

"Our old ship was damaged from battle," the second man explained generously, drawing his sword. "We lost most of our supplies, so of course, we stopped here to get more."

"You-!" Umi roared, making to rush forward before Kurogane once again grabbed her arms to restrain her.

"You burned her house because...?"

"Why not? We could use soot," the third man explained, shrugging, only half-serious. "For writin'."

Umi thrashed, trying to free herself and crying openly. Kurogane held her arms tightly, pushing her back and standing in front of her. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the star-shaped compass that has miraculously not been lost along with his body at sea and held it out towards them.

The three pirates salivated at the fine craftsmanship and the sturdy silver.

"I'll give it to you," he said, simply. Umi sobered for a minute, tears still streaming down her pale cheeks.

"Kurogane, your compass..."

"Shut up," Kurogane said, and held it out. "I'll give it to you if you leave. Now."

Exchanging looks, the three pirates seemed to come to some unspoken agreement before the leader of them (a tall man with spiked hair) stepped forward to take it, his eyes locked on the humble treasure.

Kurogane slammed his fist into the pirate's face, sending him spiralling back into the sand, completely stunned. They were clearly lackeys, he thought, if they hadn't seen that coming; used to people being so scared of them that they bribed them for their safety and didn't give them any trouble. In a flash he had ripped his sword (how lucky he had been, he finally reflected, that it had not been lost to the water either) from its scabbard and went about dispatching the other two.

It was afterwards, when Umi was sitting solemnly by the crumbling remains of her childhood home and Kurogane was inspecting the unconscious bodies of the sailors, that he found the bat tattoo inked into various places of their bodies. His hand flexed, unbidden.

The bat tattoo that the man who had taken his father had worn.

He pulled Umi up onto the deck of the ship.

"Are you sure you wanna come with?" he asked. "It was just your house, it's not like you can't rebuild."

Umi looked out at the island from the railing, a determined look overtaking her eyes.

"I know," she said. "But if you're looking for the man with that tattoo, I want to go with you."

"For revenge?" Kurogane asked. She shook her head.

"No. Only..." she sniffed and lowered her head, unconcerned with vanity for the moment. "I want to ask him why he would let his crew do such a thing. They acted like... it was something they did all the time."

"He's not on this ship," Kurogane said, craning his neck up to look at the fluttering blue sails. "He must have more than one. A small fleet."

"Yes," Umi said, nodding determinedly. "But when we find him, I'll ask him that."

"Do what you want," Kurogane said. "If you think it'll help."

Umi didn't answer, and Kurogane turned to search their new ship for the captive crew.


	4. IV: Uncommon Luck

They'd found the crew in the brig; it was a small crew, most of whom had only signed on for one voyage. It was safe to say that all of them would be departing after their adventure with the dim-witted pirates.

Captain Ueda granted them passage to Ascot port, where the men filed off hurriedly, taking their wages for half the journey and scattering like spooked cockroaches. Kurogane watched them go, leaning against the railing and scoffing at their cowardice. Mentally, he was charting the journey home – he'd have to barter passage on a merchant ship (a passenger ship would undoubtedly take too long and be too expensive) for the two of them to Aiju, and from there they would have to see what ships were available to them. If he could only find someone who knew of his father, maybe he could...

"Well, this is it, Miss Umi," Ueda's voice managed to break through his thoughts as he politely greeted his cousin. Umi was dressed in a plain blue dress and white bonnet, spare clothes left over from the sailmaker who had journeyed with the crew of Ueda's ship not too long ago. "And for me as well, I'm afraid."

"Hmm? What do you mean?" Umi asked, fiddling with the dress, which was a little big on her. Ueda smiled shyly, blushing a little.

"Well, I thought I would wait until we were all together to tell you, but since it looks like you'll be going off with this fellow... I've asked Miss Omura to marry me, and she's said yes, on the condition that I stay with her and retire my ship."

"That's wonderful!" Umi cried, throwing her arms around her blushing cousin and giving him a hug. "I'm so happy for you!"

"A-as am I," Ueda said, laughing. "She said that she's been waiting for me to ask for ages. Although it means I'll have to sell my ship. Are you interested by any chance, Mr. Kurogane?"

Kurogane looked up at the blue sails and sighed, turning away.

"I don't got any money for that kind of thing," he said, sighing heavily. He'd had some money saved up before, all of which had undoubtedly found itself into the hands of those damn pirates. His hands clenched into fists unconsciously and he snarled at the thought of those fiends.

"Ah, that's too bad. How about you, Miss Umi?"

"Me?" Umi asked, giving her cousin a withered smile. "You know I don't have any money either."

"Well, you've supplied us with provisions for ten years without receiving compensation in the slightest. I would say that's enough to cover it."

Umi smiled widely.

"Really? It's that easy?"

"Well, I've been sailing this ship for ten years. I'd like to see it go to someone in the family, if nothing else," Ueda said, smiling in return.

"T-thank you!" Umi stuttered, jumping up and down in excitement.

Kurogane could only stare in shock. First he had washed up on shore unharmed, all of his possessions had stayed with him, and now a ship had all but fallen into his hands. Amid the tragedy of his father's abduction, too many things seemed to be falling perfectly into place – his luck had never been this good.

* * *

"Bye! Byeee!" Umi called over the rail of the ship, waving as Ueda and his fiancée slowly became small dots on the horizon. She sighed and leaned against the dock, pressing her hat to her head so that it wouldn't blow off. "Oh, she's so beautiful," Umi sighed wistfully, leaning against the railing wistfully and Kurogane manned the helm.

The cartographer didn't reply, deep in thought as he mechanically steered the ship along the coastline, staring broodingly off into the distance.

"Eh? Kurogane?" Umi prodded, padding over to him and waving a hand in his face. "You look all spacey."

"It's all too convenient," he said, keeping his eyes pinned to the horizon.

"Eh? What is?" Umi asked, blinking prettily.

"This. The ship, washing up on your island, holding onto all of my effects, beating up those bastards so easily, that the next port is so close... It shouldn't be this easy," he muttered, turning the helm to avoid moving too close to the shore.

"I wouldn't call getting lost at sea in the first place lucky," Umi remarked wryly, giving Kurogane a look that suggested she was questioning his sanity. Kurogane snorted. "Are you being suspicious of your own luck?"

"I never said that," Kurogane said. Umi pouted.

"Well, it's not that lucky that we have to sail to the next port to find people to help us sail the boat."

"Crew," Kurogane said. "And it's _ship_, not boat. It's unavoidable. Two of us can sail a ship along the coast, but for a longer journey we'll need more men, and after those spooked sailors got to the tavern there'd be no change finding that back in Ascot."

"I guess," Umi pouted, pulling the hat from her head before the wind threatened to snatch it away. "How long is it going to take to sail to Aiju?"

"Two days," Kurogane said. "If the weather's good."

"And then we'll find people to help us," Umi said, clutching her hat to her chest. "And we'll find the man with the bat tattoo."

Kurogane looked down at the bandage covering the back of his hand and gripped the helm tighter.

* * *

When he was at the helm, there was nothing to do except stare out at the wide expanse of ocean and think. Kurogane thought about a lot of different things, usually – his sisters, his parents, the scattered, ultimately insignificant relationships he'd made with people on the ship and in different ports. He'd been thinking about his family almost constantly since the attack, but now, for the first time in a while, he thought about Fai.

For some reason, he thought about sitting out on the bay in a rowboat with the blond on his fifteenth birthday. Hunched over his fishing rod, he tensely waited for any sign of a bite while Fai was lying half-asleep at the other end of the boat, his legs thrown over the side and his toe fiddling with the fishing line.

"You're not going to catch anything like that," Kurogane said. Fai pushed the brim of his hat up with the pad of his thumb and smiled amusedly at the younger boy.

"Kuro-ruu is a strange one," he said, laughing as he sat up and propped himself up on his elbows. "When he goes fishing, it's to catch something."

"Why the hell do you go fishing if not to catch fish?!" Kurogane grumbled. Fai shrugged.

"It's relaxing," he said. "There's no deep reason."

"It's because you're an idiot," Kurogane muttered, tugging at his line a little and reeling it in half an inch.

Fai made to reply, the teasing smile already making its way onto his face before there was a violent jerk on the fishing line and Fai scrambled to grab the rod before it was pulled over the side. He laughed as the rod bent under the pressure of his catch, working quickly to reel it in.

"Lend me a hand, would you, Kuro-rin?"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Kurogane snapped, grabbing the rod and helping Fai pull obediently. They pulled mightily on the fishing rod, grunting in exertion as the cheap wooden rod creaked and bent beneath the pressure before the line snapped abruptly, sending them tumbling back. The force of their landing caused the boat to buck and tip, plunging them into the lukewarm water.

Coughing and hacking, Kurogane struggled his way to the surface, grabbing at Fai's waist on instinct on his way up and hauling the blond with him. He grabbed at the overturned rowboat and kicked his legs, gasping in air as the two of them broke the surface, a breathless laugh on Fai's lips and a curse on his own.

"Ahahaha, looks like it got away," Fai said, grabbing onto Kurogane's shirt. "Too bad. We'll have to eat sand for dinner tonight!"

"Why the hell would we do that?!"

"I wouldn't want Kuro-min to go hungry," Fai said, treading water as he threw one arm over the capsized boat and fell a bit forwards into the other boy.

"I..." Kurogane trailed off, suddenly realizing that he was holding a dripping wet, laughing Fai, and that their faces were quite close together, and that this might have been something of a romantic situation if he didn't completely fail at such things and if Fai would stop being a total idiot for once. His hand fisted in the back of Fai's shirt and his heart picked up a little as Fai suddenly leaned forward rapidly and buried his nose in his chest.

"What the hell!?" Kurogane roared, freezing up as his heart made a sickly series of leaps. Fai sniffed loudly a few times before drawing back a little and peering up at him through wet bangs.

"Kuro-ruu smells like fish now!" he said, laughing and shoving himself back, dunking under the water as Kurogane spat out a curse and splashed at him violently.

Eventually they had managed to swim back to shore, dragging the boat along with them, and lay out their wet effects on the rocks scattered across the beach. Clad in only soaking trousers, they'd spent the day on the beach beneath the drying sun, and if they'd spoken of anything significant the memory was now too faded for Kurogane now to recall.

A voice broke him from his daze.

"Kurogane?" Umi asked, the corner of her mouth twitching as she waved a hand in front of his face. "Everything okay?"

Kurogane grunted.

"Fine," he said, looking up at the sky to avoid the weird look Umi was giving him.

As expected, the wind and weather were perfect.

* * *

Aiju was a bustling town of rigidly dressed women and primly-postured men. Even in the thick, muggy heat of the tropic climate, the Aijuans wore conservative clothing and headgear that featured thin veils for the women and wide, shading brims for the men. The buildings were tall and square, tan and grey, and the cobblestone-paved streets and ornate fountains that dotted the walkways belied the image that the surrounding jungle set of an uncivilized, untamed terrain. It was the pale white root buried deep in the dark dirt of a wild, twisted tree.

Kurogane stood at the edge of the dock, arms crossed, looking out over the city with a solemn expression. He'd sent Umi off to look for crewmen, figuring things would move quicker if they split up. He'd sent her to the market, taking the much shadier and more dangerous taverns on himself.

There was one such tavern called The Red Butterfly near the edge of town, close to the docks. Undoubtedly, sailors would drink there – it was as good a place to start as any, he figured, pushing open the swinging door and wincing at the pungent smell of cigar smoke and vodka.

He made his way through the crowd, evaluating the thin crowd of men out of the corners of his eyes, pushing as intrusively as he could towards the bar in the back where a bespectacled boy was shakily cleaning a tankard with a dirty cloth. He was muttering to himself, a half-crazed expression on his face that seemed to change at random as he twitched and squirmed this way and that.

Kurogane sat down heavily at the bar and the boy jumped dramatically to attention.

"C-c-c-can I get you anything, sir?" he asked, hurriedly straightening his glasses. Kurogane grunted and leaned against the bar, giving the boy a calculating look.

"What's with you?" he asked. "You look like you're about to have a heart attack."

"I-I'm fine!" the boy insisted, polishing the same spot on the tankard obsessively. "I'm just not used to working in a place like this yet."

"A place like...?"

All at once, Kurogane was interrupted by the dry slap of flesh meeting flesh as one of the tavern's patrons hauled back and slugged the man sitting next to him, ale dripping from his beard and eyes clouded from the effects of alcohol. Kurogane whirled around and leapt from the barstool as, shaking like a leaf, the young bartender clambered over the bar and rushed over to the brawling sailors.

"P-please, the two of you, if you could just - !" he protested ineffectually. One of the men swung a fist at him in response, causing him to panic and duck. "There's n-no fighting allowed in this establishment - !"

"Shut up, brat!" the taller of the two snarled, baring his rotting teeth in a threatening smile. "Like hell I'm gonna let a skinny brat like you tell me what to do!"

"I-I'm asking you nicely, sir, if you could just take it outside..."

And then the young bartender was cut off in mid-sentence by a fist to the jaw, sending him flying backwards into the bar so that he slammed his back against the curve of the wood, crying out in pain.

Kurogane straightened decisively, placing a hand on the pommel of his sword and glaring at the cackling troublemakers calculatingly. Having apparently forgotten the nature of their brawl for a moment, both men and their followers now turned to face him, their expressions raging from a slight nervousness to arrogant smugness that only drunkenness would create.

"What, a swordsman?" one jeered.

"You're going to use your sword against all of us?"

"No," Kurogane said simply, letting his hand slide off the hilt. "I don't need it."

With that, he flew forward, pitching himself straight into the heart of the action.

When all nine men (he'd counted – all of them easy targets, without any kind of fighting skill, no kind of challenge whatsoever) were lying twitching or unconscious on the ale-soaked floorboards of the now-deserted tavern, Kurogane made his way back to the bar to find the young bartender holding an icepack to his blackening eye, wincing at the pain.

"T-thanks," he said, clearly exasperated with the situation. "Sorry, usually I'm able to duck in time, I could've taken care of them on my own."

"Right," Kurogane said. The young bartender smiled and introduced himself as Kimihiro Watanuki, held out his hand to shake Kurogane's, and lowered the icepack with a weary sigh.

"Since you helped out today, how about a meal on the house?"

Kurogane grunted in acquiesce. He hadn't eaten real food – fruit, fish caught in the shallows, and herbs he did not count as proper food – in what felt like forever, and he was more than glad to accept. Watanuki hurriedly ladled out some stew from the giant pot on the stove and set to work frying up some fish.

"You don't look like the kind of person who should be workin' in this kind of place," Kurogane said, gulping down the stew like a starving man. Watanuki laughed uncomfortably.

"Well, I used to work as the governor's cook," Watanuki said, flipping the fish expertly and displaying his skill. "So it's hard to get used to... such a different pace."

"Why're you working here if you had a soft job like that?" Kurogane asked, silently admitting that this stew was the best he'd ever tasted. Watanuki sighed dramatically, hanging his head as he dabbed salt onto the fish.

"I—It was Christmas Day, and I'd just served Lady Hima-- um, the governor's daughter her breakfast, and she said in the cutest, most angelic voice imaginable that it was delicious! My food! And I knew, right then, that everything in the world would be alright and the sun would always come up and the birds would always sing...!"

"Does this story have a point?" Kurogane grumbled, cutting off the boy in the middle of his lovesick ramble. God, he'd never been that far gone for Fai. He would sooner insult the idiot than say anything as disgustingly mushy as that.

Watanuki took on a woeful look as he served Kurogane his fish.

"It was after that," he said, looking utterly dejected. "That she said the most horrifying words ever uttered."

"What's that?" Kurogane said, shovelling the fish into his mouth.

Watanuki took a large, steadying breath, placing a hand on his heart.

_"'Watanuki would make a great housewife!'"_

Kurogane blinked as the young bartender's body spasmed this way and that, grabbing his head and trying to block out the offending words as though they caused physical pain.

"What's that got to do with anything?" he asked, scraping the fork down the plate to catch any crumbs he'd missed. Watanuki gave him a shocked look.

"Lady Himawari said that about me!" he said, slamming his head down on the bar. "So, I told her that I was resigning, and I won't go back until I've proven that I'm a man!"

"You were a man before," Kurogane remarked dully.

"Not to Lady Himawari, and that's all I care about!"

"You're not going to become a man just by working in a shady, disgusting place like this," Kurogane said. Watanuki blinked at him in confusion.

"What should I be doing then?" he asked, a little irritated but curious to hear the answer. Kurogane shrugged.

"You're the only one who can decide what it is you'll need before you believe it," Kurogane said. "But unless you consider those idiots real men, seems like all you're going to do is learn how to be a brute."

"..." Watanuki looked down at the kettle in his hands, silent.

"Anyway," Kurogane continued, standing. "I just came in here to recruit men for my crew, but since they've all cleared out, I've got no reason to stick around."

"Crew?" Watanuki asked. "You're a captain?"

"...I guess," he said. It was Umi's boat, but he was the one running the show, so to speak. "You know anybody willing to work for room and board?"

"M-mister, if Lady Himawari saw that I'd travelled the world, she'd be sure to think I was a true man! She'd have to! I'd be experienced and wise and have muscles and a tan!" he declared, flexing one arm a little. Kurogane paused.

"...You don't have any sailing experience, do you?"

"...No..."

"...You've never been outside Aiju..."

"Well, no, but... every ship needs a cook, right? And I promise I'd work hard," Watanuki said, coming around the bar to stand face-to-face with the taller man. "I'd do anything to prove myself to her. I won't slow anyone down."

"...Hn," Kurogane said. He couldn't afford to pay his hypothetical crew much, if anything – he couldn't be picky. And besides, there was something about the way the boy looked at him (determination to see something through, he thought) that he couldn't help but like. "We're leaving tomorrow. Be at the dock."

"You won't regret it!" Watanuki howled in happiness, leaping athletically over the bar and rushing off to tell the surly manager that he was quitting.

* * *

Between the two of them, they'd managed to round up one other person to sail the small merchant ship. Umi had found her at the marketplace - a tall, tanned woman who was willing to work for passage to a distant island. They hadn't asked why, but she was experienced and knowledgeable and willing to work for free, and so he'd accepted her offer on the spot. Her name was Souma, she came from Helius, she'd been sailing twelve years and that was all he knew about her.

He did, however, do a double-take when Umi introduced her, recognizing her as one of the sailors on board the ship that Fai served on.

"Souma?" he croaked. She blinked at him.

"Oh," she said. "Kurogane, was it? You're Fai's companion."

"I-I wasn't that guy's anything!" Kurogane grumbled, blushing a tiny bit before shaking it away. "Why the hell're you looking for work? You left the ship?"

"...Oh, you haven't heard?" Souma asked, very quietly and tentatively.

"Heard what?" Kurogane asked, worried instantly at the tone.

"Our ship..." she began, looking as though she was uncertain she should be saying this. "A month ago, we were attacked by pirates, and the ship went down."

Kurogane's heart dropped; he could sense Umi looking at him with both confusion and worry, but he ignored her.

"That idiot..." he began, hands clenching into fists. "He survived, right?"

"Oh! Yes, Fai is alright. Last I heard he was in Tarago," she said before looking down once more, closing her eyes. "But he did not escape unscathed."

"Eh?" Kurogane asked, heart pounding fast with worry.

"...His eye..." Souma began, looking very solumn. "I'm afraid that in the struggle, Fai lost his left eye to the man with the bat tattoo."

* * *

**Notes**: I'm actually kind of surprised that more than one person thought Umi was an OC, especially since I always have tons of crossovers in my fics. She's not an OC, she's from Magic Knight Rayearth, another Clamp series. She's the one with the blue hair in the icon I'm using.

Let me say here and now that I will likely never write an OC character (I don't begrudge others the use of them, but I don't like using them myself) and that all characters that have a significant role will be Clamp crossovers, as they do in Tsubasa.


	5. V: The sea spits up some visitors

Kurogane took a deep breath and knocked smartly on the door of his family's bungalow before pushing it open and taking a tentative step inside. As he'd remembered, it smelled pleasantly of wet wood and a warm fireplace; there was an inviting sort of darkness filling the room and as his boots clomped against the floorboards the sound of something wooden clattered to the ground to his side and someone gasped.

Turning, his heart froze when he took in the sight of his mother standing in the threshold, covering her mouth with her hands as tears welled up in her eyes and slid along her fingertips. He turned the rest of the way and took a step towards her.

"Mother..."

Trembling, his mother reached out and twined her arms around him, pulling him to her gently, almost calm, and buried her face in his shoulder. Her fingers clenched in his jacket as she finally made a soft sound against his shoulder and clutched him tightly.

"Kurogane," she whispered, sobbing silently into his shoulder. "We heard of the ship. We... we thought you were..."

"Dad... Dad's alive too," Kurogane croaked, hesitantly bringing his hands up to rub his mother's back comfortingly. He had never been good at offering comfort delicately, and so he settled on simply telling her the truth. "They took him. But I _know_ he wouldn't let himself die."

His mother pulled back and looked at him questioningly, her eyes swimming with tears that she wiped hurriedly away.

"They?" she asked. Kurogane stared at her.

"The pirates," he said. Her eyes widened slightly and she framed his face with her hands before letting them fall to his arms.

"We were told your ship overturned on a rogue wave," she said. She kept her fingers clenched in his shirt sleeves as though worried he was an apparition that would dissipate the minute she blinked. Kurogane's eyes narrowed in suspicion; why would such a story have made it all the way back to Paloma? Stories of pirate raids had never been kept from the public before. Had the gentlest story been crafted when they hadn't shown up in their regular ports as to what happened?

And yet, he thought, his father's ship had to have been seen with a pirate banner on it. It had to have been seen somewhere; it couldn't have just disappeared from the face of the earth.

"Kurogane," his mother said, her voice quiet but unwavering. "Please tell me what happened to the two of you."

Kurogane nodded firmly, leading her to the kitchen table and letting her keep a grip on his hand as he told her of the attack.

* * *

"This is where he grew up?" Umi remarked, peering disapprovingly down at the sand that kept creeping into her sandals. She reached down and removed her sandals, flinging them over her shoulder by the straps. She was far too used to moving around barefoot to be able to stand the feeling. She hadn't lived in the jungle her entire life just to go soft – the bottoms of her feet were tough and resilient, more than capable of handling the sandy, soft dirt and dewy grass they walked across.

"Guess so," Watanuki replied, peering around, taking in all he could. "It's kind of surprising. It seems like such a friendly, quaint place."

"Yeah," Umi replied, picking up the hem of her pastel blue and white dress and stepping over a puddle. A very light rain spat down on the earth even as the sun shone brightly in the sky and merchants and neighbours were out and about, socializing in the tiny, close-knit coastal town. "Souma says Paloma was always one of her favourite places to stop because the people were so friendly and inviting."

"They've got a great marketplace, that's for sure," Watanuki replied, poking around in one of the merchant's stalls for supplies. He bought a few vials of sauces and spices and moved on to the vegetable stand. Umi followed, uninterested in food but curious to see more of the town.

"I wonder how long Mister Kurogane wants to stay here," Umi remarked pensively, picking up a strand of blue pearls from one stand and inspecting them. "His poor mother. She had to have been so worried about him."

"It'll be okay, though, right?" Watanuki asked, digging down to find a head of lettuce near the bottom where they were fresher. "He doesn't seem like the type of guy to linger when there's a job that needs to be done."

"No," Umi said, fiddling absently with the pearls before handing over a coin that Kurogane had given her. She pulled her hair back and strung the pearls over her head like a makeshift headband. She smiled at her reflection in one of the stall's mirrors. "He's not."

"I've never had to cook for a crew before," Watanuki said, wandering determinedly through the tiny food market. "Limes for the vitamins should be good, and salted meat and beans. Anything that can be kept without spoiling for a good amount of time."

Wrinkling her nose at the mention of limes, Umi trailed after him.

"Mister Kurogane and I had lots of oatmeal and rice," she supplied helpfully. Watanuki nodded, looking around for the aforementioned items.

"Chocolate should be good too," he said. "It'll keep and I can make it into a drink if I melt it down, too."

"You won't find that sweet shit here. Too expensive," came a rumbling voice. Kurogane approached his crew with a large rucksack thrown over one shoulder, dressed in fresh, black clothes and looking clean and presentable for the first time since he'd been thrown from his father's ship. He'd had his sister trim his hair after many hugs and tears and shaved the beginnings of a beard from his face after taking a quick bath. Watanuki gaped in shock and Umi smiled widely, clapping her hands.

"Wow, Mr. Kurogane!" she said, her cheeks a little pinker than usual. "You clean up pretty good! You don't look like your usual self at all!"

"Hmph," Kurogane grunted, one hand on his hip as he looked away pointedly. "Figured I might as well. Who knows how long we'll be away?"

"Do you think we'll be away for long?" Watanuki asked, gathering up the bags he'd dropped in his shock that the bedraggled, "drowned puppy" look he was used to seeing on Kurogane was not, in fact, the man's chosen fashion statement.

"We'll be away for as long as it takes," he said, resting his hand on the pommel of his sword. "Are you ready to go in an hour?"

"An hour? That should be fine!" Watanuki said, cradling the cabbage head against his chest. "I can get the shopping done and loaded on the ship in forty minutes or so!"

"Good," Kurogane grunted, secretly glad that they wouldn't be surviving on piss-poor ale and stale biscuits for the rest of their journey. Watanuki turned and ran off into the thick of the marketplace, his head swivelling this way and that as he looked for suitable supplies.

"So soon?" Umi asked in surprise, trailing after the captain as he turned on his heel and headed back towards the ship. "I thought you'd want to visit your family for..."

"It's more important that we track down that guy," Kurogane said, cutting her off as he clomped down the dock. Water splashed up through the creaking planks and soaked into the soles of his boots, teasing the blisters on the undersides of his feet. There was a thin fog settling over the docks from the ocean that muffled the sounds of sails flapping in the breeze and nets being hauled up and over, the cry of the gulls that haunted the docks and the lapping of the waves against the hulls of ships, rocking them back and forth as the ropes tying them to the docks strained and whimpered at the movement. Yet despite the quiet, industrious cacophony of the docks he'd grown up on, Kurogane was unable to find comfort in the familiar sounds.

"I'm sure one day wouldn't make a difference," Umi remarked, ducking under a drunk man's arm as he struggled to carry a large crate on top of his head. "Your sisters I'm sure will be worried sick about you, and your mother..."

"It's fine," Kurogane grunted. "I told them that I wouldn't die."

"Kurogane..." Umi began tentatively, hands clenched in her dress.

"I don't say things I don't mean," he said resolutely, pausing a moment before stepping up onto the gangplank and shifting the sack over his shoulder. "Are you coming or not?"

Umi broke into a smile.

"Yup!" she said, trailing after him up the gangplank.

"You're back?" Souma called, scrambling elegantly down the rigging to perch atop one of the crates of biscuit tins Ueda had left them with. Her bare feet were tangled up in coils of rope as she steadier herself with her hand, looking every inch the seasoned mast-climber.

"We should prepare to leave port," Kurogane said. "That other kid'll be back in less than an hour and we should be ready to cast off once everything's loaded."

"So soon?" Souma asked, kohl-lined eyes widening in surprise. "I thought you had things to settle here."

"I settled 'em," Kurogane said, leaning heavily against the railing of the ship, irritated that he was being continually questioned by the female percentage of his mismatched crew.

"I'll help however I can, Miss Souma," Umi remarked, laying a hand on Souma's. "Mr. Kurogane taught me a lot about sailing on the voyage here, I hope I can be useful to you."

"Of course," Souma said, smiling politely. "I'd be happy to show you how to do anything you're uncertain of."

"Alright!" Umi said, smiling brightly. "If you need us for anything, Mr. Kurogane, come find us, alright?"

"Hn," Kurogane grunted, staring out over the expanse of the misty ocean. The wind from the waves chilled his skin, seeping through the fabric of his shirt and sending a shiver down his spine. He leaned against the salt-soaked wood and rested his chin on his arms, sighing periodically as the girls worked and eventually Watanuki struggled to haul his purchases onto the ship. He pulled himself from his stupor long enough to help him, carrying the heavier crates on his shoulders down to the galley and store them away for their voyage.

When they were finished, Kurogane pulled himself up to the helm only to find Souma already there, guiding the ship from the dock as Umi unfurled some of the sails they'd tied from above and awaiting his order.

"Where shall we go, Kurogane?" Souma asked him. He looked at her. She was dressed in men's clothing with a feminine sash cinched around her waist to hold her pistols. Her tanned hands gripped the helm and the wind tore strands of her shorn hair from their nest beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She was waiting patiently for an answer; Kurogane ran over his options in his mind, realizing at once that the simple question wasn't one he was immediately prepared to answer.

The map his father had given him had ended around the South Spider Islands, he remembered. He'd studied that map like a sacred text, in the lamplight late at night and the crow's nest at all early hours of the morning. He could recall most of the details of the well-studied map in his mind when he closed his eyes, and he was certain that the pirates, if they'd gone to the trouble of taking it, were heading somewhere recently charted. While he had no idea where, specifically, they were headed, it was most likely they were heading south, to the islands that his father had only recently charted.

"Towards the southern border for now," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Towards Tarago?" Souma asked, turning the helm accordingly. "I thought as much."

"No," Kurogane said, looking away. "We're not stopping unless we need to. We have enough supplies to be able to reach the siren's passage at least. There's no reason to stop there."

"Oh?" Souma asked, green eyes widening in surprise. "Forgive me, Kurogane, but I was sure you'd want to check in on your friend."

Kurogane stiffened.

"I've got something to do," he said defensively, turning away. "And that guy... he's an idiot, but he can take care of himself. The person who needs me most right now isn't him."

"Kurogane..." Souma began before she shook her head and gave him a soft smile. "Of course, you're right. And I'm sure that you'll be able to see him again soon."

"Hn," Kurogane grunted, colouring a little. "Like I care."

* * *

"It's sooo nice out!" Umi cried, holding her sun hat on her head as she stared out across the shimmering water, a wide smile on her face as the wind rushed past her and fluttered her pastel pink dress about her knees. "It looks kind of like there are stars in the water."

"Hn," Kurogane grunted, stoically manning the helm. They had been sailing for three weeks now, just having passed the coast of Tarago and continuing on towards the siren's passage to the southwest. Above head he could see Souma hanging from the rigging, repairing a pulley, and close to the bow he could see the young chef peeling something over a bucket, his pants rolled up to his knees and his hands blistering. He shifted the wheel a little and turned his gaze back forward.

"The further south we go, the warmer it gets! It almost feels like home!" Umi was saying, turning from the ocean to smile at the captain. Her smile faded when he didn't reply, staring broodingly into the distance. "Mr. Kurogane?"

"Hn."

"Are you alright?"

"Fine."

"You seem a little..."

"I'm fine," Kurogane said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, fidgeting. "This 's just a pain."

"Steering the boat?" Umi asked, venturing closer.

"Manning the helm," Kurogane corrected grumpily. Umi cheerfully ignored the tone and prodded him gently out of the way to look at the oak helm.

"It's the most important job on the ship and you're bored?" she asked, poking the knobs before curling her fingers tentatively around them. "Jeez, you're fussy. If you're so bored I can take over for a while."

"You don't know how," Kurogane said, scowling (pouting) at being pushed aside.

"So teach me!" Umi said, smiling and tossing her hat down onto the deck. "Come on, don't just stand around. I'm part of this crew right? So I should know."

"...Hmph," Kurogane grunted, crossing his arms. "I've never taught anything in my life."

"Well, there's a first time for everything!" Umi declared, grabbing his arm and tugging him over. "So, which way do I turn it?"

"You - ! You don't turn it anywhere, we're on course right now!" Kurogane snapped, yanking his arm back.

"Okay, okay, jeez!" Umi said, righting the helm. "So I just... keep it steady?"

"Yeah," Kurogane said, placing his hands on his hips. There was a long silence; the ocean swelled against the ship's belly and the sails flapped against the masts. The wooden ship creaked as it cut through the waves, travelling ever onward towards the southern border.

Umi held the helm steady, determined, letting Kurogane correct her position once or twice before she sighed deeply.

"This _is _boring," she declared, slumping over in defeat.

"That's what I said!" Kurogane roared.

* * *

Meanwhile, across the ship, Watanuki sat with his back against the railing, working tirelessly with the fruit he'd managed to keep from spoiling. He cut them mechanically, preparing them for the dinner he was preparing for the crew. His first time trying to make something with them and he was finding it irritatingly difficult.

"Please don't let it be a disaster," Watanuki whispered fervently, dramatic tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he clenched his hands into fists around the peeler and fruit. He threw his fists up in the air dramatically and cried out to the open sea, "HIMAWARI-CHAN, I'M SLICING THESE FOR YOOOU!"

"Are those limes?" came a stoic voice.

"Of course they are," Watanuki replied tersely, slicing another fruit in half.

"You're cutting them up?"

"The crew needs their vitamins. There's not too much I can make with limes without a proper kitchen, the least I can do is make them easier to eat."

"Vitamins?" questioned the voice, sounding rather uninterested and muffled now, as though there was something shoved in the speaker's voice. Irritated at the stream of pointless, short questions and the lack of emotion in tone, Watanuki whirled around to tell the boy leaning over the ship's railing to shut up.

"Would you shut up?!" Watanuki snapped, freezing when he noticed the lime slices poking from between the boy's bluish lips. He made an indignant sound, staring in horror as the stoic-faced teenager (naked from the waist up, the nerve!) chewed mechanically on the slices he'd just meticulously cut and swallowed, slurping up the juice from his fingers.

"It's not bad," the boy said simply.

"_NOT_ _BAD_?! I SLAVED OVER THOSE!! AND ANYWAY, WHO SAID YOU COULD HAVE ANY?!" Watanuki shrieked, reaching out to strangle the stupid, half-naked, stoic-faced, idiotic _loser _who dared to crawl up onto their ship in the middle of the god-forsaken ocean and steal his food --

He stilled.

"WHERE THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM?!" he shrieked, scrambling back and holding out the carving knife as a makeshift weapon. The boy leaned over the railing further to grab up some more lime slices, scattered across the deck as a result of Watanuki knocking over the bowl in his haste to move.

"There," the boy replied, chewing obnoxiously and pointing over his shoulder.

"Eh?! T-there's no land for miles, what the hell do you mean _'there'?_! Are you - hey, quit eating those! – some kind of castaway?"

"I thought you just said there was no land for miles," the boy remarked, chewing on a lime rind. Watanuki whacked him on the back of the head to make him spit it out.

"DON'T EAT THAT PART! Well, how else did you get all the way out here?!" Watanuki cried, crossing his arms indignantly.

"Swam," the boy said simply, shrugging.

"SWAM?!" Watanuki cried, grabbing the boy's ears and trying to tug him over the side. "Do you mind telling me how in the hell you swam all the way out to the middle of the..."

The boy hit the deck with a wet flop and Watanuki went silent. The boy sat up and ran a hand down his wet face, blinking obliviously before looking back up at him with that impassive expression.

"That hurt," he said stoically, shifting so that he was sitting more comfortably, the long, grey fish tail that made up his bottom half flopping down with a squish on the deck. His fins unfurled as he crossed his arms and looked up at the half-cut lime in Watanuki's hand. "Are you going to eat that?"

"WHAT-- WHAT--!"

"Nevermind, there's more down here," the mermaid (_merman_?! Watanuki thought in a brief and strange moment of clarity) remarked, pushing himself up onto what SHOULD HAVE BEEN knees but was instead an array of glistening scales and picking one up.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Watanuki cried, scrambling back and away from the weird (hideous, gross, annoying, somehow INFURIATING) creature and throwing his arms up protectively. "What the hell are you supposed to be?"

"It's Doumeki," he remarked smoothly, five or six lime slices shoved in his mouth. "I never knew you could cut these up."

"Of course you can! The inside is what you're SUPPOSED to eat!" Watanuki grumbled. "AND THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!"

"You're a human, right?" Doumeki said, holding up a hand. Watanuki nodded sickly, his mind reeling. "I'm not human."

"I CAN SEE THAT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!"

Doumeki shoved a finger in his ear.

"Would you shut up?" he asked. "I could hear you at the bottom of the sea."

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO SHUT UP!" Watanuki roared, crawling up and poking Doumeki incessantly in the chest. "What kind of operation is this?! Mermaids don't exist! And even if they did, mermaids are supposed to have MORE THAN ONE FACIAL EXPRESSION!"

"I'm not a mermaid," Doumeki replied, looking vaguely irritated. "And you're shouting in my ear."

Sputtering, Watanuki made to strangle the annoying fish before Kurogane made his appearance, clomping up the stairs and up onto the deck.

"What the hell are you yelling about?!" he demanded.

"This guy!" Watanuki yelled, pointing with a glare at the blue-faced merman. "He has an annoying face!"

Kurogane stared incredulously as Doumeki pulled himself away from the lunatic chef and onto the railing.

"Yo," he said. "You're Kurogane, right?"

"Who... What the hell are you?" Kurogane asked, squinting in disbelief.

"What does it look like?" the merman asked, shrugging.

Kurogane shook his head.

"Stuff like this is just legends!" he declared. Watanuki flailed around.

"That's what I said, captain, but he wouldn't LISTEN!"

"Whatever," Doumeki said, shoving a finger in his ear to block out the noise. "I just wanted to let you know there's someone stranded on a rock out there. I think you know him."

"Eh? Why didn't you say that in the first place, you - ?!"

"Why should I care?" Kurogane asked, mostly for appearances' sake. Just what he needed, another freeloader.

"I figured you would," Doumeki said, shrugging. "He said your name in his delusion."

* * *

Fai was shivering and unaware of where he was when they pulled him up onto the ship. He fell to his knees with a wet, soggy flop and his shirt slipped down past his shoulders. He fell forward and hit his head square on the deck. Souma and Watanuki gasped, but Kurogane figured there wouldn't be much damage done considering what a moron he was to begin with.

"Oi," Kurogane said, trying to keep his voice calm as he grabbed the idiot's shirt and tugged him up. "Oi, wake up!"

Fai muttered a name, something that started with a "Y" that Kurogane didn't recognize. He looked up at Souma, eyes blazing.

"I thought you said he was in Tarago?" he growled.

"H-he was," Souma said, clasping her hands together. "At least, the last I'd heard..."

"He was on a ship," Doumeki remarked, sitting on the canon protruding from the port. "They made him jump from the plank. He's only been out there a day or two."

"You idiot!" Kurogane growled down at Fai. "What the hell kind of mess did you get yourself into this time!?"

"It looks like he's just waterlogged," Umi remarked, kneeling next to the blond and giving him a once-over. "Mister Kurogane, maybe take him to your cabin to lay down? Yelling won't do any good right now."

Kurogane slumped in defeat and grumbled out an affirmative, throwing the blond's soaking body over his shoulder and stomping off to his cabin. He slammed open the door and made to drop the blond on the bed (the only bed on board, in fact) before considering that it might not be the best idea in Fai's current state and laying him down gently instead. He sank down on the mattress beside him, running a hand distractedly through his hair. Something didn't fit, he thought anxiously. Fai should have died. He had been a bartender, not a sailor, he shouldn't have even been on a ship in the first place, and yet here he was, with Kurogane. This wasn't right. This luck, this ridiculous string of good fortune he'd been having, it felt so damned _unnatural_.

He looked down at Fai's flushed face. He took the blanket folded at the foot of the bed and threw it over him. The blond was breathing deeply and shivering, but it appeared that a fever was the worst of his injuries. He'd probably swallowed too much water or something. Gone too long without air before being washed up on the rocks. Even then, it was an amazing stretch of the imagination to think that the stars has aligned so perfectly as to time Fai's misfortune with the passing of Kurogane's ship so close by.

Anxiously, he stood and stomped back out onto the deck purposefully, approaching the merman hanging over the side of his ship.

"Go watch him," he barked at Souma, sending Umi and Watanuki scattering themselves with twin expressions of worry on their faces. He turned to the weird half-fish man and gave him a level stare.

"How'd you know I was 'Kurogane'?" he asked, blunt and to the point. He wanted answers and he was sick of not understanding. The merman gave him an impassive look.

"They called you that when they pushed you from the boat," he said, shrugging. Kurogane tensed, not having expected such an answer.

"What?" he asked incredulously. "How the hell do you know about that?"

Doumeki shrugged.

"Who do you think pulled you to shore?"

"Did you really think you kept all your effects by chance?"

Doumeki sighed at the look of disbelief on the captain's face.

"You get good luck for a while if you're saved by someone like me, moron," Doumeki said tonelessly. "I haven't saved anyone before. Figured this guy's dumb luck might have been someone elses' luck altogether."

* * *

As Fai's eyes fluttered open, someone was pacing back and forth, muttering to themselves and stomping dramatically.

"Kuro..." he began, before his vision cleared and he took in the sight of the young man at the foot of his bed, too young and skinny to be the person he'd thought. "Oh. Hello," he said, smiling weakly as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. A wet cloth fell from his forehead to the ground with a squish.

"GAH!" Watanuki cried, wound so tightly that he all but jumped out of his boots at the sudden noise. "Y-you're awake!"

"It looks that way!" Fai declared, trying to force his voice to sound cheerful and ending up exhausting himself. "Uwah, I feel terrible!" he said, flopping back on the bed and covering his eyes with his arms.

"You were found drifting out at sea!" Watanuki said, coming around the bed to pick up the wet cloth Fai had dropped. "Some really annoying, weird guy found you, and luckily he came and got us."

Fai smiled weakly.

"It looks like I got myself into trouble," he said, choking out a laugh. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"A week," came a deep voice. Fai looked up to see Kurogane leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, glaring at him searchingly.

"Hyuu, it's Kuro-pin!"

"C-captain..." Watanuki began. Kurogane gave him a look and he nodded, slipping past the captain and leaving them alone. Fai forced himself to sit up again, smiling absently at his old friend.

"It's 'captain' now, huh? Looks like Kuro-ruu isn't doing too bad!" he said, coughing.

"Shut up," Kurogane said, swinging the door closed and blocking out the main source of sunlight from the room. The new darkness made Fai oddly nervous, and he pushed himself into a sitting position and squinted with his one good eye to better see the other man. Even without his other eye, his eyesight had never been the greatest.

Kurogane crossed the room and sank down in the chair next to the bed.

"What the hell happened?" he asked, to the point. Fai laughed.

"It's nice to see you again, too, Kurogane."


	6. VI: The Wishes of People

Something calm blew across the ocean that night. The night was dropping from the sky, unfurling like a treasure map before the little bobbing ship. Kurogane let his eyes wander from the horizon, shifting the hull a few notches starboard.

The idiot was leaning over the railing, hanging there like a limp squid caught on the hull. The wind cut across the water, filling the sails and ruffling his hair and clothes, which were already a tad big on him. He had needed to borrow Kurogane's clothes after waking - Watanuki's being too short, Souma's being too female.

Kurogane's eyes settled on the back of the accursed blond head; the newest addition to his haphazard crew.

"Humph," he grumbled to himself, peeling his eyes away.

"Evening, captain!" came a cheerful voice. He turned and nodded at his first mate, who climbed up onto the deck with a bottle in her hand. Umi flicked her hair over her shoulder and graced him with a smile, holding up a bottle of rum.

"From our very own ship's cook!" she proclaimed grandly, grabbing his hand and curling his fingers around it. "Mister Kurogane is old enough, right? Mister Watanuki said he found some in the store room. If you want I can take over steering for you!"

"That's fine," he said.

Kurogane gripped the bottle and yanked out the cork with his teeth, spitting it over the railing. He tipped his head back and took a long drink. One arm went limp and he shifted the helm again with his other, eyes trained to the horizon.

"Eeh? But should you be steering if you're drinking?" Umi demanded, her voice rising up to a shrill pitch.

"I won't get drunk off of a bottle," Kurogane replied, leaning against the helm and taking another drink. He offered her the bottle silently.

Umi looked scandalized.

"But I'm underage!"

"'S long as you don't abuse it and cause trouble, I don't care one way or the other," Kurogane said, shrugging. He made to take another drink, considering his offer rejected, when Umi grabbed his wrist.

"T-there's really no way I'd feel right about it!" she cried, clenching her hand into a fist.

"Alright," Kurogane said, trying to tug his hand free, but she held firm.

"What's the big deal anyway? It's just rum and water," she said, sniffing the open bottle distastefully.

"You know what you can handle and what you can't," Kurogane said. "Have some if you want; if you don't, then don't."

"T-that's way too simple!" Umi cried, flapping her arms. She grabbed the bottle and pointed it at him. "I'll have one sip! But that's it! I definitely won't have any more until I'm old enough! Just enough to be able to socialize!"

Kurogane stared at her strangely.

"Do what you want," he said, watching with bewilderment as Umi screwed her eyes shut and took a big gulp from the bottle. Almost immediately her eyes flew open and her mouth pursed. She swallowed deeply and stuck out her tongue sickly.

"Uuuuuuuuugh, it's awful! Mister Kurogane, how can you drink this stuff?!"

The corner of Kurogane's mouth almost twitched upwards. Almost. Instead, he took the bottle back and took another swig. His eyes slid over Umi's head at the blond once again.

Umi wiped her mouth daintily, following his gaze. She perked up, clasping her hands together behind her back and smiling brightly.

"Should I offer Mister Fai some?"

Kurogane screwed his eyes determinedly back to the bow.

"That guy drunk is the last thing we need," he grumbled.

Umi looked over to Fai, pursing her lips thoughtfully. She turned back to her captain and cocked her head prettily at him.

"Miss Souma said you two were old friends," she prompted. "Did he tell you what he was doing in the middle of the ocean?"

"Nope."

"Eeh, really?" Umi cried. "So it's a mystery?"

"Didn't ask for details," Kurogane said. All he'd wanted to know was if he could expect any angry pirates or military ships coming after the blond. Fai had shaken his head no. That had been the end of it. Kurogane knew Fai. He knew he wouldn't tell him that he was up to until the water was up to his bottom lip and he only had time to gulp out one last confession before it filled his mouth and silenced him forever.

"I hope he's alright," Umi said, wringing her hands together. "He seems like he's pretty cheerful, but right now, looking out at the ocean like that? He looks sort of sad."

"…"

"You're worried about him, aren't you?" Umi asked, smiling softly. "Even though you won't ask him about his past, you're still worried."

"He's an idiot," was Kurogane's only reply. He slid his thumb over the top of the bottle and stepped away from the helm, stomping his way down the deck. "Take over."

"Wah!" Umi cried, leaping to steady the helm and giving him a prim salute. "Yes, captain!"

Kurogane stomped with purpose towards the idiot.

* * *

"There's only enough food for four people," Watanuki said, standing firm.

The grotesque fish creature stared up at him with unblinking eyes.

"Must be a long trip," he remarked.

"That's not the point!" Watanuki cried, swatting at the insufferable merman with his spatula. "The point is that I stocked up for the crew, not some straggling stowaway who doesn't realize when his invitation's past its welcome!"

"Souma said it was fine," Doumeki said, shrugging, reaching towards the potatoes Watanuki was chopping.

"IT'S MY KITCHEN!" Watanuki yelled, whacking the merman's hand back again.

Doumeki shrugged, reclining against a sack of potatoes and turning an unpeeled one over and over in his hands. Watanuki slid the potatoes into the stew and watched him sourly. The merman had been initially helpful, he had to admit - but that didn't mean he had any reason to stick around! He just didn't get it. What the hell did some half-assed fish get out of spending his time bothering him? Didn't he have fish things to do?

"Oi," Doumeki said.

"I JUST DON'T GET IT!" Watanuki screamed, ripping a potato in half. Doumeki's brow furrowed.

"Oi," he repeated.

"AND I SAID IT BEFORE, MY NAME ISN'T 'OI'!"

"You need the skin off, right?" he said, holding up the potato. "If I do that, will you use it?"

"Eeh? Don't you have fish food you could be eating instead?"

Doumeki's lip shifted and his eyes narrowed in what seemed to be a barely perceptible pout.

"Not a fish," he said. This seemed to be a sore spot with him, and so Watanuki poked at it as much as he can.

"Whatever," he said. "If you want to peel a potato I can't stop you, but that doesn't mean you're contributing. I could do it myself if I wanted."

"It'd be faster," Doumeki said. "I'd have helped."

"WHY DON'T YOU HELP BY JUMPING OVERBOARD SO I DON'T HAVE TO COOK FOR ONE MORE HALF-PERSON?!" Watanuki yelled, tossing a frying pan at the unemotional mermaid, who just ducked.

Already a routine had sprung up between them; Watanuki would complain about and insult the merman at every turn, and Doumeki would ignore him and wait for dinner to be ready. Watanuki had absolutely no idea why a) the merman didn't just go home and eat what he normally ate, b) why he cared enough to spend most of his waking hours on board a ship instead of in the water, or c) why he thought that peeling a few potatos in the clumsiest manner possible was contribution enough to deserve a full serving of each meal he prepared. He just knew he didn't like it.

"WHY THE CAPTAIN DOESN'T TOSS YOU OVERBOARD I'LL NEVER KNOW!" Watanuki bellowed, stirring the stew with vigour.

Doumeki had started peeling a potato of his own will, concentrating deeply, making one very slow stroke along the side. The skin peeled off in a long, slow strip and curled to the floor in a neat ring. The merman batted it away with his tail.

"Why don't you just eat the skins if you want people food that bad?" Watanuki grumbled.

"It's better cooked," the merman shrugged.

"AND PICKY TOO?!"

"Hey. What's up with that guy?"

"Eh? What guy?"

"The captain," Doumeki said, making another careful slice. "Pretty slim crew isn't it? And you don't seem like pirates."

"Oh, that…" Watanuki said, staring down at the simmering pot. "All I know is that he's looking for someone, and so is our first mate. He gathered us together to help him find that person."

"So what's in it for you?" Doumeki asked, slicing at a microscopically quicker pace.

"It's all for Himawari-chan~!" Watanuki all but sang, throwing his arms up. "Once I come back an experienced sailor, she'll definitely see how we're meant for one ano -- ahhahahahaHA!" he trailed off into embarrassed laughter, lost in his own delusions. Doumeki rolled his eyes at him, which prompted Watanuki to toss a ladle at his head.

"So you all want something," Doumeki remarked, looking down at the half-peeled potato. He lowered his arm.

"I guess," he said. "I don't know what Miss Souma gains from helping the captain, but I didn't want to just ask."

"…"

"A-anyway!" Watanuki braced himself. "What's it to you, huh?! You should've been out of here days ago!"

Doumeki was silent for a moment, looking seriously down at his tail.

"There's something I want too," he said.

"Eeh?" Watanuki asked, lowering the spoon that was brandished like a weapon. "Really? What?"

Doumeki looked at him with an emotionless gleam in his eye and held out the potato.

"Food," he said.

"AUGH!!"

* * *

"Oi."

"Kuro-captain~!" Fai chirped, whirling around with a smile before Kurogane could get a look at his expression. "Aah, is that rum?"

"Not very strong," Kurogane said, handing it over regardless. Fai took a long gulp..

"Bleeeeeeeeh," he croaked, wincing before going in for another drink.

"You could just not drink it," Kurogane said with a suffering glare.

"That's no fun," Fai remarked, smiling weakly. Kurogane's eyes narrowed; years ago that smile wouldn't have seemed to strained. Lines were growing like maps that led nowhere around his mouth; stress was setting in.

Fay turned away and flopped over the rail again, hogging the bottle.

"Kuro-tan," he said, "You really had to go and grow up, huh? You don't look anything like the cute little kid I used to bug back on Paloma."

"Shut up," Kurogane grimaced, stealing the bottle back. "Don't start that nostalgic shit again. I didn't come down to reminisce."

"No? C'mon, you're old enough now, we can drink together!"

"No way," Kurogane said. "I've seen you drunk."

"No fun~"

"What do you intend to do now?" Kurogane asked, looking seriously at the blond. "I don't know anything about your life. If there's something you need to do, say it and I'll drop you off at the nearest port."

Fai hiked up his elbows and leaned heavily on them, peering thoughtfully at Kurogane.

"Kuro-ruu is heading after the man with the bat tattoo, right?" Kurogane stared at him, but Fai only smiled. "Miss Umi told me. If it helps, I know someone who can help you find where he's gone."

"Who? Where?" Kurogane asked, grabbing Fai's arm. Fai laughed.

"That hurts, Kuro-captain! Relax, I'll tell you. Can you tell Miss Umi to sail south-west?"

"Who is this person?"

"I'll tell you when we get there, how's that?" Fai said, smiling away. Reluctantly Kurogane released his arm, but took the change to step closer, giving Fai a level stare.

"You didn't answer the question," Kurogane said.

"What question?" Fai asked, rubbing his arm.

"What you wanted," Kurogane said, looking him straight in the eye. Fai's hand dropped. "You never said."

"Hmm," Fai said, threading his fingers together and pressing his hands upwards in a stretch. "How about, for right now I just want to travel with Kuro-pon. Is that alright?"

Kurogane tried to ignore the flush. It had been ages since he'd last seen Fai. He'd dealt with these stupid feelings for years. He'd have thought he'd be better able to control things like this, but the truth was that he was worse than ever. Instead, he turned away so that Fai wouldn't see and start up with the teasing again.

"You can do whatever you want," he said, making to stomp off. "What should I tell the girl?"

* * *

**Author's Notes**: Hey! Apparently I'm the awesomest for updating old fics way, way too late.


End file.
